


Is It Your Heart That Breaks First or Fragile Bones?

by VeteranKlaus



Series: Neon Gravestones Try To Call (For My Bones) [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Diego is to Klaus as Allison was to Vanya, Fainting, Klaus finding new powers man, Klaus has ptsd, Klaus is the new Vanya, Mental Breakdown, Mental Illness, Mental Instability, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Possession, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Sober Klaus, Telekinesis, Torture, Vanya isn't rumoured, Violence, Vomiting, psychotic breakdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2019-11-17 16:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 37,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18102182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeteranKlaus/pseuds/VeteranKlaus
Summary: Number Four was a failure, he said. Number Four didn't have powers, no, he had schizophrenia. He took pills that came from his father's hands and told himself it was all a hallucination.In the end, they should have known better. Klaus Hargreeves can speak to the dead, can conjure and control every dead soul, and he ends the world.Or,Klaus' powers get out of hand at a young age. Reginald, the A+ parent, claims him as schizophrenic from there on. Eventually, he breaks.





	1. One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a classy AU where Klaus swaps roles with Vanya, in a sense. He has the same powers, and maybe a couple extra. 
> 
> Anyone, I hope you enjoy this as a quick intro!

As soon as he turned eighteen, Klaus left. He threw all of his stuff into a bag, heard Pogo promise he’d send more pills every two months, and he left.

Their family had been falling apart long before that. Luther was a carbon copy of dad and never stepped out of line. Five threw a temper tantrum and disappeared, Ben died in a horrific, bloody mess, Vanya destroyed things when she couldn’t control her powers, and Allison was fed up of it all. Diego was busy fighting Luther half of the time. Klaus was simply the ‘defective’ one, the ordinary one with a mental illness that if he missed his clockwork pills, he sat and screamed at vivid hallucinations for hours.

Living with Reginald Hargreeves was hard enough. Living with Reginald Hargreeves only because he thought you were super powered, only to turn out to not be, at all, was worse. He sat on the side lines of everything, didn’t have a say in anything. Grace included him like nothing was wrong, of course, and Diego was nice. Ben was a saint to him when he was still alive. Five was indifferent. Luther hardly knew he existed and Vanya was scared of herself, but sometimes they played their instruments together. Her violin helped channel her powers and his piano helped distract him from the side effects of his medicine. Allison was civil, nice when they went to get coffee when they were older, but as kids she had always been tense around him. Uncomfortable.

He didn’t care.

Klaus promised to take his pills, because, quite frankly, he didn’t like not taking them, and he left. He pursued after his music career and worked his way through the ranks of an orchestra, and when he wasn’t taking his medicine or performing, he frequented music halls and theatres and art studios. Sometimes (a lot of the time) (most of the time) he’d get a takeaway and put on some Disney film and have a nice night in by himself.

That was nice. He didn’t need his dysfunctional family. He’d have coffee with Diego sometimes, play music with Vanya occasionally, and mourn Five and Ben by himself, and he’d get on with his life.

Life did improve once he moved out. He got an apartment and joined an orchestra. He also took up acting; he had been told he was good at controlling his facial expressions and body language, and so he put it to good use, performing some parts in some pantomimes and plays. It was fun. His apartment was a little on the small side and to this day he couldn’t get over the side effects of his medicine, but otherwise, it was good.

The news of their father’s death had been a shock, but not a necessarily unpleasant one. Klaus couldn’t care less about Reginald, really, but he did want to see mother and Pogo, so he packs his bag full of leather trousers and oversized shirts, brushes his teeth, and grabs his pills. In a rush to get out in time for his taxi honking outside, he decides to just take them once he had settled down in his old, small bedroom in the academy. He can put up with it for an hour or so, and he heard nothing in the taxi ride there, anyway. He wonders if anyone else would be home already – probably Luther, if anyone – and how this night was going to play out.

Hauling his bag over his shoulder, Klaus braced himself and headed to the door.

 

It’s as uncomfortable as it ever had been for Klaus. Diego is nice when he greets him, happy to see him again, and Vanya, who arrives last, speaks to him about their music excitedly. Luther gives him a tense, half-hearted note of acknowledgement and Allison, although polite and nice, seems to be reverting to her tenseness around him again. Klaus busied himself by making himself a cup of tea and greeting mother and Pogo, letting the rest of his siblings exchange manly, heroic stories or whatever it was they did that didn’t include their mentally ill, ordinary brother.

Grace is… odd, and Klaus feels bad for leaving her so long with no other company other than Luther and Pogo. She speaks to him like she did when he was young, asking him how his medication was going, his music, if he wants a smoothie or anything to eat.

“No, mom,” he smiles gently, “I’m good, thank you. Maybe Diego will want a coffee, though?” He offers, and Grace blinks before tipping her head and nodding.

“You’re right, dear. Thank you.”

She turns, heels clicking gently on the kitchen floor as she walks to the side and began to make a coffee for him.

He only has a moment to relax in his seat, sipping the warm tea, before Diego wanders in.

“Hey, Klaus,” he greets. His shoes scuff the floor as he wanders over, all sleek black clothes and knife holsters. “We’re having a family meeting about dad. Luther’s request,” he announces, and Klaus scoffs.

“When is it not Luther’s request? And don’t you look thrilled about this,” he jokes, took another sip of his tea, and then shifts when Diego raises an eyebrow. “Oh, a family meeting that requires me too?” He queries, swiftly standing up and leaving his drink on the table. “How exciting.”

Diego fixes him with that look he always did whenever Klaus said something like that, and Klaus rolls his eyes. “I know, I know, I’m still your brother,” he says before Diego could, and the man nudges his arm.

“You better know it,” he replies and Klaus gives him a small smile.

“Diego, dear, I made you some coffee.” Grace’s voice catches them in the doorway and they turn to look at her. Diego clears his throat, wandering over and smiling.

“Oh, thanks mom,” he says gently, taking it from her hands. “It’s lovely.”

She smiles, red lips framing perfectly white teeth, eyes unblinking. “I’ll make dinner tonight,” she tells them and the brothers nod gently. Diego urges her to sit down for a while, and then the two walk back into the living room where the rest of them were sitting. In Luther’s case, standing, looking tense. Klaus sits on one of the armchairs, Diego sitting on the arm of the sofa, and with their attention fixed on him, Luther begins.

“I think we have a few important things to discuss,” he states. Klaus wonders where he got clothes so big. How had he even buffed up so much since the last time he’d seen him?

“Like what?” Diego hums, though he looks like he already knew what he was talking about. Klaus was intrigued by that, although he knew that just about anything Luther said ticked Diego off. Klaus can’t say he disagreed.

Luther follows up with something about dad’s death and Diego bitterly laughs, rolling his eyes, and Klaus wonders if he was about to hear some mad man’s tale and he settles in. He tries to listen, really, he does, but Luther rambling about a missing monocle isn’t as interesting as the whispers on the edge of his mind, the flashes of a cold mausoleum (it was always a mausoleum, and though Klaus felt he should think about that more, he didn’t) and bloody, dead hands were taking more of his attention.

“What are you trying to say, Luther?” Vanya asks, voice low and challenging, and Diego snorts, throwing his hands back.

“Isn’t it obvious? He thinks one of us killed dad, that’s what!” He exclaims, his head shaking in disbelief, and Luther lets out a defensive sigh.

“That’s not what I’m saying, it… it has to be someone close to him,” he defends and Diego storms out, a murderous glare directed towards Number One and Klaus stands up too. Someone screams in his ear and he suppresses a flinch, begins to make his way back over to the door.

“Where are you going? Klaus?” Luther calls after him, and they cackle.

_“Where are you going Klaus? Where? Where are you going? Where are you going? You can’t leave us, Klaus. We’re always with you. Look at us, Klaus. Look at us!”_

Klaus shrugs half-heartedly. “Off to get water, or to kill mom. Guess I’ll decide then,” he scoffs, and then he makes his way back into the kitchen and lets the remaining siblings argue it out. He steps into a growing puddle of blood that drips from a pale corpse towering above him, and Klaus puts his hands on the kitchen table and closes his eyes. He needs to get some water and grab his pills from his bag in his bedroom, and it’ll be fine. 

He pours the water with a shaking hand, spills some of it on the stairs as he dodges a little girl running down the stairs, pink frilly dress flowing behind her, her lips blue and throat bruised.

Why Klaus’ hallucinations are only ever dead people he doesn’t know. He doesn’t think he’s ever had a hallucination that hasn’t been a dead person screaming for his help, screaming that he can’t hide from them forever. They felt real to Klaus, so real, and he could easily lose time in his hallucinations. Once he’d gotten drunk and forgotten to take his pills, and in the morning he had woken up to hands around his throat, fazing through him just as his ears began to ring.

But he dealt. Though the pills made him feel faint and sick they stopped all of the hallucinations stop and he could put up with the vomiting, the fainting, the headaches, all for some blessed silence.

He digs the little orange tub out of his bag, pours two of the white pills into his hand. Someone sobs behind him, and when Klaus turns around he sees a woman in a hospital gown, blood trickling down her pale legs. When Klaus makes eye contact with her she lets out a shaking cry.

 _“I lost my baby,”_ she whispers, clutching her stomach. _“They took my baby, my little boy. Where is he?”_ Her voice raises to a yell, a cry of anguish, and she screams at him for her child. Klaus drops his pills to clasp his hands over his ears, but it doesn’t quieten her.

A voice joins in with hers. A man’s, cold and low and Klaus sees the tips of his blood stained boots a foot away from Klaus’ knees on the floor, sees his shadow cast over him.

 _“You’re one of those kids,”_ he says, _“the masked kids, yeah. They killed me. They killed me, and I’ll kill you.”_ He rambles on, tells Klaus how he’s going to strangle him, beat him to shit, cave his head in and gouge his eyes out, and Klaus closes his eyes and screams.

 

 

He remembers when he was younger he never liked taking his medicine. He used to insist that he didn’t need them, that surely these must be his powers; illusions, or something, but Reginald had been so adamant that if he didn’t take his pills again he’d get punished. He remembers standing aside as his siblings did their training, remembers drawing the umbrella tattoo on his arm when he never got it, remembers tracking his medicine dosages and schedules while they went out on missions.

Klaus remembers the few doctors he’d seen back when he was very young, fuzzy memories of doctors that said big words like ‘schizophrenia’ and ‘hallucinations’, things about his mental state, advice on sending him to ‘special hospitals’. It was just a miracle that the medicine actually did its job. At least now he could function.

He remembers the times he hadn’t taken his pills. When all the hallucinations would scream at him for hours and he’d sit on his bedroom floor and scream louder than they did, and one day, Reginald soundproofed his room for the sake of everyone else. Klaus could scream through his nightmares and his hallucinations and no one would hear him, and today was no different.

He hardly realises that they’ve stopped yelling, that they’ve all gone. He pries his eyes open, feels tear tracks cold on his cheeks, and looks at the single, quiet, figure in front of him. He looks around Klaus’ age, maybe a bit younger, and he’s watching with soft eyes. He looks uncomfortably familiar. He looks a bit like Ben if he were to be alive today, Klaus thinks.

“Hey, Klaus, they’re gone. Are you okay? Can you see me?” He asks, and Klaus closes his eyes and moans. He just wants them all to go.  He turns around on his hands and knees, tries to find the pills he dropped in his carpet.

“Wait, Klaus, wait just a minute, please,” he pleads, and Klaus finally finds one, and then the other.

“Klaus, we need to talk.”

“Christ, _shut_ _up_ ,” Klaus growls. He uses his bed to pull himself to his feet and sits on top of it, wipes his eyes on the back of his hand. “You’re not real. You’re not going to be here in five minutes anyway,” he mutters, grits his teeth and reaches for his water. A hand intercepts him, and the two of them stare at each other, wide eyed.

“Klaus, please, you need to listen to me.”

When they touch him is the worst, Klaus thinks. It’s wrong and cold and _real_ and Klaus hates it. He yanks his hand back out of his touch, curling his fist protectively around his pills, and scoots back on his bed until his back hits the wall.

“I’m sorry – I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.” The hallucination hurries to sort itself out and it’s so weird, more unnerving than corpses, because they’ve never been nice like this.

Klaus throws the pills down his throat dry and watches the hallucination’s mouth drop in defeat. He closes his eyes and hears his voice become muffled like it’s underwater, and then silent. Once he opens his eyes again minutes later, the hallucination is gone, and he lets out a sigh of relief.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you did enjoy this and like the idea of it, feel free to leave a kudos or a comment! I love hearing all of your feedback!


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say thank you all for the support this received on the first part, I really appreciate it and I'm happy to hear that you guys do like it! Thank you all, and I hope you like this part!

After the ‘family meeting’ everyone had gone their separate ways once more, getting ready for Luther’s call for the funeral, and Klaus sits in the kitchen, watching the rain run down the windows. Tea burns in a hot cup between his hands and his leg bounces rapidly. His medicine had settled in and other than some common nausea and light headedness, he feels better.

Occasionally he drags his fingers over the spot where he’d felt the hallucination grab him, his fingertips feather-light on his wrist. Though his hallucinations where mostly just visual and auditory, there were occasionally times where he felt them. Those were his least favourite hallucinations, left him feeling wrong and cold.

He’d never had one like that, though. Never had one where they didn’t scream and cry at him, never had one that apologised to him. He’d never conjured up a present-day Ben like that, and it made his chest hurt with grief for his long-dead brother.

The entire encounter left a sour taste in his mouth, and Klaus blames it on his pills and washes it down with more of Grace’s tea. He let his eyes wander the kitchen, the few decorations around the place, the liquor cabinet in the corner, the cheap bunker lights. The place had always felt more of an academy than a home. They’d been allowed to decorate their rooms as long as it was appropriate; Five’s walls were covered in a chalkboard paint that he used to cover in equations. Allison had her calendars and modelling inspiration, a few posters of old bands she had liked at the time. Luther’s had been full of little nick-nacks and decorations, and Diego had kept his fairly simple. Vanya’s had orchestras and musicians on posters around her room, sheets of complicated music pieces and some studies on physics and energy. Klaus had the smallest room, the walls exposed brick and unpainted. He had put up some fairy lights to try and brighten it up, tried to put up as many posters of whatever to hide the exposed brick, so similar to the cold, rough brick walls of the prison he was trapped in in his nightmares. He had once tried to write everything he heard, occasionally on the walls in a frantic hurry, and Reginald had been furious. He’d been confined to his room, entertainment and decorations stripped out save for his keyboard, and he was only allowed out for meals and for him to watch as he took his medicine again.

In the end, Klaus thinks that this place had never been like a home to him. A prison, a place of confinement, a punishment, maybe, but never a home.

He sets the tea down on the table and rests his head in his hands. He’s tired and shaken up from being so careless with his medication – he _knows_ he can’t not take it, knows nothing good comes out of it – and he really just wants Luther to call this funeral, get it over with, and go home, leave the important family members to sort things out. He’s sure Pogo will make sure he’s sent whatever heritance he’s owed, if any.

The tea in front of him clicks as it shakes on its’ little plate, liquid sloshing over its’ rim and onto the wooden surface, and Klaus furrows his eyebrows. He can feel it too; something akin to a little earthquake, steadily growing more intense. The cup of tea slid down the table towards him and he moves to the side just as it flies off the table and smashes against the wall behind him. Outside has grown incredibly dark, flashes of brilliant blue light illuminating it and casting eerie shadows along the walls and floor. He hears footsteps and gets up as, one by one, the rest of the siblings came jogging in, looking worried. Klaus follows them hesitantly outside where wind batters against them and the flashes from what Klaus can only describe as a tear in reality is blinding.

While Luther comments on what he thought it was, Klaus eyes movement on the other side. It almost looks like a hallucination again, a distorted image of an old man pushing through and then something – some _one_ – fell. A kid in old Umbrella Academy uniform, and Klaus feels something inside of him twist.

“Does… Does anyone else see little Number Five?” He asks quietly, taking a hesitant couple of steps forwards towards him before holding himself back.

Number Five had disappeared a little less than seventeen years ago after an argument with their father over dinner, and Klaus had missed him greatly. He had left peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches out for him, left lights on overnight so that if Five returned he would see the house awake and open for him and he wouldn’t be scared away again. Five was nice to him when they were younger, and Klaus had always hoped he’d come back some day.

They go inside like puppies, in shock and just following after Five who seems completely oblivious and ignorant to their shock. He asks for the exact date as he makes himself and a sandwich and Klaus tells him it off the top of his head. It seems to be the right thing to say, however, as Five seems pleased. It’s… surreal. He makes himself a sandwich and complains about the future, mentions someone named Delores, and then simply leaves as if the conversation they had was completely normal. Klaus thinks he got whiplash from it all.

They share a look after Five leaves them in the kitchen, and one by one they slide out of their chairs around the table. Luther mutters something about the funeral happening in an hour, and Klaus finds himself standing in the kitchen by himself once more.

Sometimes Klaus doesn’t mind if they didn’t include him, so long as they spoke to one another. He wants to see them act like a family to one another rather than continuing to tip-toe around one another and rub each other the wrong way. He misses seeing Allison and Luther run off together to go make dens, misses seeing Vanya and Allison doing one another’s makeup, misses Diego always covering for any of them in front of dad, misses Ben’s little comments from whenever he’d glance up from having his nose in a book and he misses Five trying to explain the equations on his walls.

Klaus heaves a sigh and begins to clean up the splatter of tea and shards from the cup when it had smashed against the wall earlier. Five’s disappearance had drove a wedge between them and Ben’s death had really finalised it, drove them apart. He and Ben had never spoken much – Ben had been the definition of an introvert – but he’d been sweet and kind to them all and he didn’t deserve the gory death he was dealt.

Klaus sweeps the teacup shards into the trash and slumps back into a dining chair, stretching his legs out in front of him. It’s not like he expected things to go smoothly, anyway. He knew better than to think so wishfully.

 

Klaus wanders the halls aimlessly as his stomach flips like he expects it to half an hour after he swallows down pills, waits for it to either settle or worsen like a 50/50 flip of a coin.

Saliva floods his mouth and he finishes his pacing up the corridor and sinks to his knees next to the toilet and grips it with shaking hands. His stomach lurches and he retches until his breakfast of cereal and tea and he tastes copper drip past his lips to accompany it. He tries to catch his breath before it happens again and then he rests his forehead on his arms and thinks of an apology to anyone else on the same medication.

Shoes click nearby and Five’s young voice pulls him from his bitter thinking.

“You okay?” He asks, and Klaus peels himself away from the toilet and wipes his mouth with some toilet paper, throws it inside the toilet and closes the lid. He leans back to look at him and offers a tense smile.

“Peachy,” he jokes, and Five takes a few steps in, hands in his pockets. His eyes roam the bathroom as he thinks and Klaus just waits until he speaks again.

“How have you been?” He asks. “The medicine still make you sick?” He raises an eyebrow, looks apologetic at the idea that he still deals with that, and Klaus gives him a boyish smile.

“I’m usually better at being quiet,” he replies instead with a shrug. He hauls himself to his feet and Five lifts his hand and steps forwards before back again when Klaus doesn’t need the help.

“Otherwise?” He asks, and Klaus waves a hand. He turns to the sink and washes his hands, then his mouth, and he dries his hand and mouth on a towel.

“Otherwise, alright,” he says, “I, uh, played Peter Pan in a pantomime last week. Have a concert coming up in, ah, eight days now, actually. Nice to see that everyone’s still alive as well, I guess. Whole team’s back together,” he hums. Five’s lips twitch and he nods in agreement, rocks on the balls of his feet.

“Well, it seems like you’ve got a nice thing going,” Five comments and Klaus lets out a small laugh and nods.

“It could be worse,” he agrees. He clears his dry throat and walks over to the door and Five sets a hand on Klaus’ arm to stop him.

“It’s good to see you again, Klaus,” he says quietly, and Klaus smiles.

“You too, Five,” he says.

 

There’s no more black umbrella’s when they head out for the funeral, so Klaus, generously, takes the pink one. Why they even have that one in the first place is beyond him but it’ll do the job, and Diego refuses to take it and Klaus needs some shelter if he needs to light a cigarette while they’re outside.

Luther holds the urn with their dad’s ashes and pours them out in an anticlimactic show, ashes trickling down to a pile on the dirt floor, and Klaus holds back a snort.

“It probably would have been  better with some wind,” he admits quietly, and Klaus shifts awkwardly on the spot, hugs his arms to himself and glances over his silent siblings when Pogo asks if anyone wants to speak.

It’s almost touching, what Pogo says. If Klaus didn’t know better it might even persuade him to think that Reginald wasn’t such a horrific man. He knows Diego shares his opinion, vocalises it as well, and Klaus can only say he feels sorry for their mother who hardly even notices as Diego yells at Luther.

Klaus thinks he should talk to her more before he leaves, and he notes that idea for after the brawl between his hot-headed brothers has ended. He grimaces as they near Ben’s statue and hesitates with a hand in the air, debating whether he should try to say something, but neither Allison nor Vanya say something about it, so Klaus keeps quiet.

Ben’s statue falls with a heavy thud and a crack, and Klaus utters an apology under his breath. He wonders back to the present-day version of Ben his mind had conjured up and he wonders what he’d have to say about the statue, since he didn’t seem to be up to crying for Klaus to save him.

Diego throws a threatening knife at Luther, close enough to cut in a way Klaus thinks might leave a light scar, and Allison follows him inside. Vanya seems almost as unimpressed as Five at their fight, and Klaus simply listens to the rain on his child’s umbrella as he stands outside by himself, and he lights a cigarette and wonders if their dad had ever been proud of any of them.

 

He phones for a taxi.

He came for the funeral and now that it is over, he wants to leave. He’s seen that all of his siblings are alive – even Five made a reappearance – and he’s made a lovely discovery that maybe the next time he forgets his pills there’ll be one hallucination that doesn’t seem like it’s out to kill him, which is just great.

Klaus’ apartment is a small, run down thing on the other end of town that takes half an hour by car to get back to. It was cheap and good enough for Klaus, and as long as he didn’t get in the way of the drug deals around the street at night, then he was fine. And plus, one of Klaus’ neighbours was a sweet little woman who owned a parrot that Klaus’ sometimes got to look after when she went to jail. Furthermore, no one really questioned it if he yelled a bit, and he could smoke inside if he needed to.

He had tried his best to make it look nice, though. He’d repainted the walls and gotten some nice lights – the lights in his bedroom were neon! – and he had nice posters and paintings around. His kitchen was full of cookbooks for college students, because they tended to have easy and cheap but nice recipes that he could attempt to recreate – he had gotten pretty good at baking pies by now. It wasn’t the best place, but it was more of a home than the academy had been.

He’s happy to return home and kick his shoes off to the side, hang his jacket up and boil his kettle over his stove to pour over his complex blend of herbal tea he had gotten into, and he accompanied it with a bowl of sweet berries from his fridge. He turned his TV on, kicked it whenever it went to static, and skimmed over the neglected pile of letters on his coffee table that seemed to only grow larger each week.

Most were junk; spam mail that he threw on the floor by his fireplace and knew he’d probably trip over later that night. Some were from the theatre he occasionally frequented, some from his orchestra, some from Pogo that he felt bad about not opening before. He went through his important ones and set the rest by his fireplace for the next time he couldn’t afford heating and switched to his fire again.

He puts his dishes in his sink and retreats to his bedroom, turns his purple lights on because they look cool, and he slumps into his bed, limbs heavy and full of lead. His eyes slide shut and he’s glad that his bed is probably the most expensive thing in his apartment, that he spends absurd amounts of money on his blankets and pillows and duvets. It hurts his wallet, but gosh, does it feel like Heaven at night.

A floorboard creaks and Klaus’ muscles go tense, hair on his neck stands up, and he breathes out a slow sigh. He lifts his hands and presses them against his eyes. He sometimes has this problem; sometimes his medicine simply doesn’t work, or it wears off too quickly. He doesn’t think there’s anything for him to do about it other than up his dosage, though he always feels like he’s a walking zombie when he does that and Pogo tells him not to, or to just suck it up until it fixes itself.

His bed turns to stone beneath him, cold and damp, and he can taste the dust in the air, feel the chill in the neglected building, and he sees the shadow of a man lock him inside with skeletons that laugh and say he’ll beg for death. Decaying hands hold him down, scratch at his eyes and down his legs, glowing hands close around his throat and they scream that death is too good for him. When he dies he’ll go back to that cold place and the shadow man will lock him in there and he’ll be theirs until he turns into one of them.

When Klaus sees the ceiling of his apartment again, feels his bed beneath his shaking fingers, there are tear tracks on his cheeks and his ribs hurt and in the corner of the room stands the solemn hallucination of Ben.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this! These first couple parts have been more of an introduction, in the sense it's looking at their current family situation rather than the powers part, but it's picking up, and the next few parts will probably be longer until the first major plot point.


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, a chapter literally just full of emotions and angst!
> 
> Possible trigger for some, ah, pretty sad stuff at the end I guess.

“You know that’s not good for you. Well, they’re not good for you in the first place which is what I’ve been trying to say, but you know you feel terrible when you take more than two.”

Klaus cups cold water in his hands and splashes his face, and he snorts.

“How would you even know that? No, don’t answer, because you’re me. Basically. So you know everything already. And I’ve entertained you for long enough, so,” Klaus waves his hands in a dismissive gesture, “shoo. I’m giving you a chance to do it yourself.”

“Would you just let me talk for one minute? Let me explain some things.”

Klaus grabs his bottle of pills, notices that he’s powered through this tub more than he should have and he ought to think about getting a refill soon, and pops off the lid. He raises an eyebrow at the sick hallucination of his brother, as it claims.

“What part of _hallucinations_ do you not understand?” He questions bitterly. He pours two pills into his hand and stares at them in his palms, and then adds another two.

“There’s more than that, Klaus,” he insists, and Klaus thinks the only mercy Reginald ever showed him was these pills. He might truly go insane without them.

“Delusions too, are a part of the whole schizophrenia package I believe. Although,” Klaus clicks his tongue, looks as if he’s pondering a fact, “I don’t think I really have those. I just get you lot. I think I’d rather the delusions.”

Behind him the hallucination lets out a small sigh and Klaus can hear his shoes scuff on the floor as he paces. Why he’s not just taken the pills already is beyond him. He thinks a part of him has always, and still does, hope that this would be more than some unfortunate mental illness.

“I know the others aren’t nice to see, Klaus, but… I want to help you with that – at home – the academy – there’s –“

Both he and the hallucination jump as a spark of blue broke the air in his living room and for a moment Klaus thought it was another creation of his twisted mind, but then young Five steps through and looks around until he spots Klaus.

“Not that I don’t like surprise visits from my time travelling brother first thing in the morning,” he says, puts his pills next to the bottle and goes to his sink, “but how do you know where I live?”

Five raises an eyebrow. “It’s not hard. There are files on everyone back home, including your new address.”

Klaus shrugs, supposes if Pogo can send him letters then that’s probably fair.

“Anyway, I need your help,” he says. He steps around his room, taking in the apartment, and Klaus leans against the counter and raises his eyebrows. For some blessed reason, Ben is still standing there, silent.

“My help? Did everyone else die a horrible death last night or something?” He snorts. He pours himself a glass of water and holds up a glass in Five’s direction, to which he shakes his head dismissively.

“No, but I don’t feel like putting up with Luther and Diego wouldn’t pass. You have a suit, right?” He asks. His shoes click on the floor as he begins to make his way into Klaus’ bedroom, and the latter follows quickly under him.

“Cool lights,” he mutters absentmindedly, and then he opens his wardrobe.

“Hey, hey, isn’t that invasion of privacy or something?” He whines, but Five has already pulled out a pair of dress pants and the only white shirt he owns.

“I got into an argument with someone in a museum,” he says, “and because I still look like a fifteen year old, I need you, an adult, to come with me and pretend to be my father so I can find something.”

Klaus presses his lips together and wonders why he’s not an alcoholic. It seems like a much better way to react to situations like these.

“Fine,” he sighs, simply because it also sounds somewhat amusing for himself and he wants to procrastinate his music studies, as well as spend some time with his sibling.

Five nods approvingly, using an unnecessary space jump to leave the room so he can change, and Klaus sits on the edge of his bed.

“You’ve got to wonder what he did for fourty-eight years by himself.”

Klaus startles, turning to look at Ben standing by his window, and he runs his hands through his hair. He resorts to ignoring it, hurrying to pull his more formal clothes on so he can go out.

“Klaus.” His voice is soft and quiet, pleading almost, and Klaus closes his eyes. He remembers young Ben, reserved and shy and always reading. Always polite and smiling at people and making up a handshake with him and Diego, checking to see if Klaus was okay after a bad day.

Klaus ignores him and returns to Five, still buttoning his shirt up.

Five stands in the kitchen, reading the label on his medicine and Klaus narrows his eyes.

“You’ve gone through a lot already,” he comments, and Klaus snorts.

“Not enough,” he mutters. He might have to talk about getting a higher dosage if it seems like he’s building up a tolerance, or getting worse.

“Four?” He queries, and Klaus scoops them up, swallows them one by one and washes it down with the last of his water. He plucks the orange bottle from Five’s hand and screws the lid on, stuffs it into his coat pocket.

“Good days and bad days, brother dear,” he says with a shrug, and although Five looks slightly concerned, he says nothing more.

By the time they leave his apartment, Klaus can’t remember what Ben looked like.

 

“So, you want me to pretend to be your father so you can get information on what, exactly? You did kind of just appear out of the blue after sixteen years, say the future is shit, and then you just dipped.”

They’re walking to the museum because according to Five, Klaus lives close enough to it already. Klaus thought museums were supposed to stand out, grand old buildings, and yet he doesn’t think he’s ever noticed one. On the way to this supposed museum, Klaus has to lean against a wall as his head swims and he feels oddly, pleasantly detached between his mind and body, and Five takes the chance to fill him in.

He glances around as if what he’s saying is of utmost secrecy, and Klaus does suppose what they’re doing is most likely illegal.

“When I went into the future,” he begins, his voice hushed enough that Klaus has to strain to hear him, “it was… the end of all things. The apocalypse. By my guess I was there possibly only a couple of hours after whatever happened, happened. There was a newspaper stand, and the date said it was seven days from today. The only clue I have as to what happened is this.” His hand dips into his pocket and he pulls out a small chain with which a pair of dog tags clash. Klaus hardly gets a look at it before Five is protectively stuffing it back in his pocket and glancing around.

“Dog tags?” Klaus questions, and Five nods his head with a solemn kind of expression. “So… a veteran, then? There are quite a few veterans out there, I’m not sure a museum could help you with this, Five,” he admits. Maybe it’s just him, but if the world truly was approaching its demise, he isn’t sure how a pair of dog tags could give any clue to this. And plus, his stomach was burning along with his head and surely anyone other than himself would be better.

Klaus ran a hand through his hair and let out a sigh.

“What?” Five questions, eyes narrowed, and Klaus shakes his head.

“I just… maybe Vanya or Allison would be better here?” He offers hesitantly. Five shook his head, pacing to the side slightly.

“I haven’t got time for this,” he mutters with frustration. Klaus opens his mouth to say something, but Five mutters something else that he pretends he didn’t hear and then he disappears in a flash of bright blue.

Klaus  leans back against the brick wall and closes his eyes. He wants to help, he does, but he doesn’t know _how_.

He pushes himself out of the alley he had stopped in and begins to make his way home, his feet moving off their own accord.

 

 

He had always been jealous of Vanya’s musical skills, how she could create such beautiful music from her hands, and it had actually been her idea that he check out the grand piano in an abandoned study they had in the academy. They had books in the library that helped teach him how to play it and Reginald never really cared so long as he kept the door closed and it didn’t interfere with everyone else’s training.

They had only been able to play music together in the later years before the family fell apart. Her violin helped to channel her powers and the first time they played together without thinking about that, she had almost destroyed the front wall.

Klaus had been grounded to his room for a week for messing with her progress.

Now, he had bought a small, real piano that fit in his living room, and he could play it with his eyes closed and upside down. His fingers thrust down into the ivory keys that echoed out Beethoven’s _Sonata Pathétique_ from his fingertips. He plays it more violently that it’s supposed to be played, he thinks, but all the tension and frustration and hatred that he holds in his chest pours out in the music.

He watches his fingers dance across the keys from a distance, and he thinks back to what Five said.

If the world is supposed to end in a week, Klaus doesn’t think he really cares.

He tries to think of what he should do if had the ability to do something. If he should have gone with Five – though he probably did manage to convince Vanya to do it, because she had always been close with Five. Would he be at the academy, tracing leads to find a soon-to-be murderer? Maybe it would be a last minute thing, considering the only thing he had to go from was a pair of old dog tags, and Klaus could prove he was useful and he’d save his family and they’d appreciate him.

But that would never happen.

Klaus was ordinary, normal, weak. Or, even worse. He was unstable and had to take pills to function properly and his mind conjured up crippling horrors that haunted him, and now even one of their poor, dead brother. He was unreliable and untrustworthy and his siblings knew it. Diego just felt bad for him – he had always been protective, took the responsibility of looking after the weak – and Vanya simply just had music in common with them. Luther had probably been right to just ignore his mad ramblings from the very beginning.

Klaus’ hands crashe across the keys, shatter Beethoven’s beautiful piece, and he stands up abruptly and heaves air into his sore lungs. There’s a vase of flowers he’d managed to keep alive sitting on the top of his piano and Klaus snatches it up and then throws it across the room. He hears it shatter somewhere across his living room and he sinks down onto his knees.

He wonders if his siblings had seen each other much. They probably had annual meetings if nothing else – Klaus knows they’ve had ‘family’ meetings without him, and he had brushed it off previously – and had probably worked together to do missions under Reginald’s command. They’d probably gone out for coffee and dinner and joked about training as kids while Klaus took pills just to stay sane. They probably discussed the pros and cons of locking him away in some psych ward so they wouldn’t have to be responsible for him while they were off signing autographs. When he dies, they won’t notice until Pogo tells them.

Klaus thinks that, if not for Pogo, his funeral will be empty.

He never met anyone else, either. No friends or lovers, and an illegitimate family that’s fed up with him. Allison got married and had a child and Diego had a complex relationship with a detective and Vanya was talking to some woman in her old orchestra. Luther was good looking and charismatic and if he put himself out there, he could probably find anyone he wanted. The only person Klaus had in his life was hallucinations of corpses that wanted him dead. Now, Klaus ponders if that's the best option his poor excuse of a life could possibly lead to.

Klaus thinks the cruellest thing Reginald did was to give him the pills in the first place. He doesn’t think he’d still be sane if he hadn’t, but at least in that case he wouldn’t be aware of his uselessness. Maybe, if he’d died younger, he’d have a statue beside Ben’s. Probably not.

Klaus thinks that he doesn’t really mind if the world will end in seven days. Maybe it’s for the better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things will be stirring next chapter so, brace yourself for that with this lovely, angsty chapter!  
> I hope you liked it nonetheless, though, and feel free to leave a kudos or a comment if you did, I love hearing all your feedback! 
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr @veteranklaus


	4. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longer chapter! Hope you guys enjoy it, things are picking up!
> 
> Also, to clarify, yes; the powers in the comic will be included. 
> 
> Also x2; not sorry for the spam of updates. Might be busy this week so take ‘em now.
> 
> Enjoy!

_“My name’s Klaus. What’s yours?”_

_She’s young – even younger than himself – and she startles when Klaus speaks to her. Her stubby fingers play with the frills on her dress and she smiles at Klaus._

_“Elizabeth, but mum used to call me Elsie,” she says, and Klaus smiles back at her._

_“That’s a pretty name, Elsie. How old are you?” He asks, and the girl looks down at her fingers and mouths numbers before holding up six and grinning._

_“Six? You’re growing up fast. I’m nine and you’re almost as big as me,” he comments, and the girl giggles, twirls her messy hair around a short finger._

_“I’ve not had a birthday party,” she tells him, “mama was gonna make me one, but daddy took me away before it happened.” Her expression changes, her eyes tearing up and her lips turn blue. “I want mama, I miss my mama.”_

_Klaus shifts on his knees, hands hovering over her as he gingerly tries to console her._

_“No, no, don’t cry Elsie, I’m sorry, hey, we can have a birthday party together, yeah?”_

_Her breathing is erratic, coming out in short gasps as if she can’t breathe, and Klaus frantically reaches out, tries to comfort her and get her to breathe, but then his door swings open and the unrelenting stare of Reginald Hargreeves freezes him in place._

_“Number Four, tell me what you are doing,” he demands, and Klaus looks at the dying girl beneath his hands._

_“She’s – she can’t breathe, dad, we have to help her.” He remembers their basic first-aid training with their mother, remembers CPR, and he remembers that blue lips are never a good thing. Reginald doesn’t seem to care. When he reaches out Klaus thinks he’s going to help, for a moment, but then his hand closes on the back of Klaus’ blazer and he hauls him to his feet, pulls him out of his bedroom and down the corridor. He hears the girl wail at him for leaving her, wailing for her mother, and Klaus can’t get out of Reginald’s grip._

_The door to his office slams shut behind them and Klaus stumbles as he lets go._

_“No one was there, Number Four,” he begins, and Klaus looks at the closed doors._

_“Yes, there was,” he insists. He throws his hands towards the doors as if trying to convey the urgency of the situation. “The little girl with the pink dress.”_

_“Number Four.” The tone in his words is anything but comforting or reassuring and Klaus stiffens, looks down at his bare feet on the wooden floor._

_“When was the last time you took your medication, Number Four?” He asks, and Klaus hesitates a moment before saying;_

_“This morning.”_

_“Liars get consequences, Number Four. Try again.”_

_Klaus bites his lip and fiddles with his thumbs. “Two days ago.”_

_Reginald slams a hand onto his desk and Klaus jumps, but he stays silent. He gets up and searches in a drawer, and he pulls out a bright orange bottle. He taps three into the palm of his hands, and then he walks to Klaus and takes his hand, puts the pills in his smaller palm._

_“Take them now, Number Four. You’re grounded to your bedroom for two weeks. I do not want to see you out of there for anything other than meals. Before breakfast you will come to my office and take your medication here, since you prove yourself unable to take them yourself. Am I understood, Number Four?”_

_Klaus nods his head solemnly, stares at the white pills in his hand until Reginald urges him on again, and he swallows them one by one with difficulty, but Reginald seems satisfied and he opens the door._

_Klaus lets himself out, but in the doorway, Reginald speaks up._

_“You are not special, Number Four. You should be grateful I do not wish to split you from your siblings.”_

_Klaus mutters a ‘yes, sir’ and returns to his room. Elsie cries and wails for his attention and he lays on his bed, back to her, and ignores her until she dissolves into the ground._

 

 

 

When Klaus wakes up, his hips are stiff and sore from the hard floor under him and he uses the stool for his piano to haul himself to his feet.

His head hurts and he feels more tired than he had before he’d, apparently, fallen asleep on the spot. He runs his hands down his face and stiffly steps towards his thermostat and he punches the heating up because he’d left a window open over night as well, which he hurries to close.

He staggers his way to his bathroom and runs his shower as he strips his clothes off, chucking them into his laundry basket in the corner, and he steps into his shower and under the almost too-hot spray of water.

He lathers his sponge in the milk and honey body wash that he’s stocked up on and he scrubs his skin red with it. He thinks about last night and when he goes back into the living room, a towel wrapped around his hips, he looks at the vase he had smashed in a puddle by the wall, shards of the vase splintered across the ground, and he can’t help but laugh at it.

He leaves it as it is and walks past it, considers doing his laundry or the dishes, and then he continues into his bedroom and slides back under his bedsheets. He’s got the shakes again and a lack of motivation to leave his bedroom. When he has these moods he usually goes down to the theatre – they know he’s always willing to fill in as an extra or as a stage hand, and he likes to watch the rehearsals. He’s been allowed in to a couple of shows for free before, and he likes seeing everyone acting out a musical version of ‘ _Cinderella’_ and hear the laugh of a cloud, the laughter of innocent children that probably won’t even remember it the next day. It’s a nice atmosphere and it always lightens up his day, but even now he can’t bring himself to get out of his bed, let alone his apartment.

He taps his fingers on the bed in the pattern of _Greensleeves,_ hums it under his breath and closes his eyes.

When he was younger he had lots of dreams where he wasn’t ordinary. He dreamt that he was fast; super fast, and that he could dodge bullets because he was faster than any gun. He dreamt that he could breathe under water, and he’d try that in the bath multiple times but each time it ended in his lungs burning. Once, it ended with Luther pulling him out of the cold water and pumping his chest until he coughed out water.

Sometimes he dreamt that had could control fire, and on long missions he’d light campfires for them to warm up to and they’d all joke about Vanya lugging a violin around with them.

Those dreams were nice, and breakfast when he woke up was awkward because he never spoke to them and Reginald yelled at them if they spoke at the kitchen table. Grace would fix his hair, messed up from sleep, and afterwards he’d go back to his bedroom and he’d listen to the sounds of them training.

“You might want to clean up the vase in the living room, you know. You tend to go about barefoot.”

Klaus screws his eyes shut and runs his hands down his face, humming changing to a sharp laugh.

“Christ, please,” he moans. He cards his fingers through his slightly damp hair, runs them down his head. He feels the bed dip as Ben sits down behind him, and he has half a mind to attempt to physically kick him off the bed.

“Klaus, this is the most I’ve been able to reach you for – for years. Please, just let me talk.”

Klaus sits up and turns around, coming face to face with his dead brother, and he looks so hopeful it’s painful. Klaus drops his face in his hands, knows his medicine is still in his coat pocket in the living room, and he slumps back into his bed.

“You know, I never thought I was fucked up enough to imagine my dear dead brother,” he comments, looking up at the ceiling. “Always random people, dying and bleeding everywhere. Maybe I’ll start seeing ol’ Reggie. Wouldn’t that be interesting?” He muses to himself. He feels something on his arm and when he glances down it was Ben’s hand. “Don’t,” he whispers, curls his hands into fists, “or I’ll get so fucked up on medicine that the next time I see you you’ll look seventy.”

Much to his surprise, however, Ben does take his hand back. He looks… hesitant. Probably in shock that Klaus hasn’t yet gone for his pills, although he tells himself the second things get weird – or, normal, considering this is the most unusual hallucination he’s had – or if he sees another one, then he’s going for his pills without hesitation.

“I don’t know how to tell you, Klaus,” he admits, and Klaus laughs.

“Thought you said you were trying to ‘reach me’ for years. Sounds like long enough to come up with something to fuck with me,” he comments, feels more laughs bubble under his chest but he keeps them down, absentmindedly tapping his fingers in rapid succession.

“You’re not hallucinating, Klaus.”

At that, he does laugh. He laughs harshly because god he _wishes,_ but he also is pretty sure that people don’t usually see and hear the things he does.

“If you’re going to be this funny you might just convince me to pour the rest of the pills down the toilet,” he scoffs, and he feels Ben’s glare on him.

“You aren’t hallucinating, and you never have been. I don’t know what those pills you take are, but they’re not good for you.”

“I really thought it was healthy to throw up daily,” Klaus mutters bitterly, dragging himself to the end of his bed and he watches as Ben hurries to stand up, as if he’s scared Klaus is about to shut him down.

“Klaus,” he warns, pleads, and Klaus turns around to face him and spreads his hands out.

“Do continue,” he says, “I’m the most amused I’ve been in years.”

Ben glares at him, but he does.

“You can see the dead, Klaus. All your hallucinations are ghosts, and the pills are to suppress your power. I don’t know why dad did that – maybe he was scared of you – but I… you need the truth. When I was alive I thought – we all thought – you were ordinary. But it was after I died and the first time you saw me, it was like I just remembered that it was never like that, Klaus.”

He looks so hopeful that Klaus was almost inclined to believe him, but it makes his chest tighten and his eyes sting, so he laughs instead.

“Oh, Ben, I never knew you were so _cruel_ ,” he says, shaking his head and forcing himself to stop laughing. He steps out of his bedroom and Ben follows, walking around him and standing in front of him.

“Look, I know you don’t believe me –“ he begins, but Klaus throws his arms up.

“No shit!” He exclaims, and he paces, taking as long a stride as he can in his leather trousers, and he runs his hands through his hair and whirls on Ben.

“Do you even know how much I’ve wished that was the case? How much I’ve tried to prove to – anyone – that I’m not some unstable, hallucinating freak? How much,” his voice has risen steadily now to the point that it cracks, and he glares, teary-eyed and furious, at Ben, “how much… I’ve gone through, trying to prove that? Do you, Ben, do you even know?”

Ben looks… he looks shocked, and maybe slightly scared, maybe even excited; a mix of all three, and Klaus realises Ben has gotten smaller. When he looks down, his hands are aflame in a dark blue glow and his feet don’t touch the ground.

Klaus throws his hands out and then he drops, hitting his floor hard and immediately scrambling back until he felt his back hit his piano stool.

“Klaus? Are you okay?” He hears Ben hurry over and Klaus ignores him in favour of staring at his shaking, normal hands and whispering “what the fuck, no, no, no” over again under his breath.

He hears, faintly, Ben kneeling beside him and telling him to breathe, but he feels his cheeks get wet and he laughs instead.

 

 

“I’m not sure; there’s obviously a reason he, well, did all of… that, so I’m not sure if he’ll have your records just out and about, but maybe? We can check his office first, and we’ll… talk to the others?”

He had calmed down slowly, Ben’s murmuring helping to calm him as well, and he watched as Klaus threw on a shirt – black and sheer, one he’d always wanted to wear but never really gotten to it – and a pair of shoes, grabs his fluffy coat and calls a taxi on his way out. He pulls his pills out and goes over the label once, twice, three times. He puts two pills on his hand and then puts it back in the bottle, pours them back into his hand and then puts them back into the bottle and twists the lid shut, much to Ben’s pleasure. If he’s disturbed, the taxi driver doesn’t say anything.

He’s only been sitting there for ten minutes when his phone rings and he jumps half out of his seat, but takes it out with a shaking hand and answers.

“Hey, Klaus, what you up to?”

It’s Diego, and Klaus almost hangs up immediately. He doesn’t want to talk to any of his family, save for possibly Ben, and even then he’s almost downed his pills so he doesn’t have to see or hear him.

“Nothing much,” Klaus says, hopes his voice is steady, but Diego doesn’t pick up on anything being wrong. Maybe he just doesn’t care, Klaus doesn’t know anymore.

“Good, good. Uh, you might want to think about calling a taxi and getting to the academy. There’s been some… news, on dad’s death. I think, anyway. We’ve not looked at it yet, but Allison and Luther found it. I’ll tell them to wait for you.”

Klaus nods, and then remembers Diego can’t see him. “Ah, yeah. I’m on my way. Hey, Diego?”

“What’s up?”

Klaus swallows and bites his lip. “I… thanks.”

Diego laughs a little. “No problem? You sure everything’s alright?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m sure… bye.”

He hangs up quickly and stuffs his phone into his pocket, and he bounces his leg until the taxi stops.

 

“Klaus, stay calm.” He almost falls over as he gets out of the taxi, and he has to talk a minute to lean against the gate to compose himself.

Maybe he really is going crazy. He feels like it. He wouldn’t be surprised if he is.

He takes in a few deep breaths until he can breathe again, and then he goes inside.

Everyone’s sitting in the living room already, quiet and tense, and they perk up when Klaus finally comes in.

“Nice of you to join us,” Luther comments, and Klaus bites back a remark, silently coming to stand by Diego’s side.

“You good? Looking paler than usual,” Diego comments quietly, and Klaus shoves his hands into his pockets.

“Oh, yeah, yeah. Bad piano audition,” he says off-handedly, and Diego just nods.

“Bold shirt,” he comments, and Klaus snorts. Diego turns to Luther.

“So? What’s up, then?” He asks, and the man turns to the television that he and Allison had set up.

“We, uh… We found proof that dad’s death was a murder,” he says, and everyone perked up, shuffling closer.

“What do you mean by that?” Vanya asks, eyes narrowed, and Luther lets out a small sigh.

“I found a tape of dad’s room when he died,” Allison says, “and it shows mum going in there and…”

“Poisoning dad,” Luther finishes when Allison’s voice grows quiet, and they’re met with silence. Klaus wants to laugh, because he thought it was physically impossible for Grace to do any harm to someone, but he simply waits for this to be over so he can ransack Reginald’s office.

They turn the TV on and everyone crowds around to watch as Grace comes into the frame, Reginald laying on the bed and looking the weakest Klaus thinks he’s ever seen him. He reaches out to Grace as he struggles for breath, and she sits on the edge of the bed and… doesn’t help. She messes with something on him and then she stands back up, leaves a cup of tea or coffee on his bedside table, and closes the door behind her.

They re-watch it another two times and Klaus really doesn’t care. Reginald’s dead and he thinks it’s for the better.

Luther says something about his monocle, and Diego rewinds the tape and points out that, in fact, it was Grace who took the monocle, and Diego who took it from her.

Klaus doesn’t really listen. He steps behind them all and behind their dad’s expensive bar and he pours himself a glass of whiskey. He’s never really been one to drink – it fucks him up when he’s on his medication – but he’s not on it right now and he thinks he deserves it.

“If that’s true, then we need to turn her off,” Luther says, and that snaps him back to attention. He looks up, startled that even Luther would say such a thing, and he leans closer.

“Woah, woah, wait!” Diego snaps, looking utterly horrified. “She’s not just some vacuum cleaner – she’s our mum! She feels things!” Diego defends, and Klaus rounds the bar.

“I’m with Luther on this one,” Allison says from where she stands, and Diego snorts with a disapproving shake of his head. “Shocking,” he comments, and Allison rolls her eyes at him.

“Shut up,” she says.

“Alright, fine. We vote,” Diego says, and he turns to look at Vanya beside him.

“I’m with Diego,” she says after a moments of thought, and Diego gives a sharp grin in return. Luther glances in Klaus’ direction.

“Klaus?” He asks coldly, and Klaus startles. He looks at the bitter whiskey in his hand and shrugs. It feels odd to be asked for his opinion on matters like this.

“Oh, I… I don’t know –“

“He shouldn’t have a vote,” Luther says dismissively, and Klaus bitterly thinks that feels more normal.

“Woah, let him talk,” Diego interjects, holding up a gloved hand. Klaus turns to look back at Luther, intently watching him, and he glares at him.

“I’m with Diego because screw you,” he seethes, and Luther shakes his head but says nothing.

“And we have the majority,” Diego declares, one hand holding up a three and the other holding up a two.

“Not yet,” Allison pipes up, “Five’s not here. It’s a family matter, he gets a vote.”

Vanya nods at that, and so does Diego. “We should wait.”

It seems like that ends the discussion as they can’t continue until Five reappears, and everyone quickly disperses, not overly eager to talk to one another, and Klaus doesn’t hesitate to finish his whiskey and grab his coat. He hears Ben, who had been quiet throughout the entire discussion, follow after him as he goes up the stairs until they’re alone. They were never allowed in this corridor, let alone his office, and the hairs on Klaus’ neck and arms stands up in an engraved feeling of dread.

“Maybe we should think this through,” Ben says, and Klaus whirls around. He feels like he’s thrumming with anxiety and anticipation, and he knows he’s hurrying.

“Ben,” Klaus says, then lowers his voice, “I’m about to find out whether or not I’ve truly lost the plot and I’ve been trusting a vivid hallucination for the entire day, or I’ve been – I don’t know, lied to about everything?” He says, and his shoulders shake as he holds back a laugh.

Ben looks grim and apologetic, but he closes his mouth and simply nods.

He wanders quietly along the corridor before coming to a stop in front of the two familiar doors, and when he tries to open them, they don’t move. He twists the handles and sighs when it proves to be locked, and he stands, stumped, for a moment before retreating back to the open hallways.

“Maybe they left a key somewhere? Or those hair clip things, some people can unlock them with those,” Ben offers, and Klaus nods his head.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, nodding, and he listens before he can be sure that Allison isn’t in her room and Luther isn’t in his.

He’s quiet as he steps inside, tense and shaking, and he quietly looks through the stuff she has on her dresser top until Ben points out the hair clips he had been referring to. He takes three, just in case, and he takes a moment to look around. He feels anger bubble through his veins again; he’d always had the smallest room, but now he thinks it wasn’t even half the size of Allison’s at least.

Klaus leaves quickly and returns to the ‘forbidden corridor’, high on alert for Pogo or anyone else. He crouches by the door and tries to remember the movies and videos he’d seen of people picking locks, and it takes him a solid ten minutes until he hears the lock of one door click open. He lets out a triumphant laugh, runs a shaking hand through his hair, and puts the hair clips into his pocket. He slips inside and closes the door behind him just in time to miss the sound of the front doors lock being blown off.

The office is as neat and put together as it’s ever been, he thinks. Everything filed away and perfectly dusted, and Klaus doesn’t know where to start. He has folders and files everywhere, on seemingly everything, but Klaus can’t find a single one titled ‘ _Number Four’_.

He hears the gunshots echo throughout the house, and both he and Ben startle from their investigation in the office, Klaus dropping a file on Vanya’s training.

“What is that,” Klaus utters, and he makes his way to the door just as more gunshots ring out and he drops down instinctively, leaning against the door.

He isn’t sure what’s going on, but he can hear gunshots and crashes from downstairs, and Klaus debates between going out and trying to help and interfere, or to stick in the office and hope everything was fine and trust his siblings. To be fair, they were super powered and overall he doesn’t think it took more than ten minutes until there was a loud crash, and Klaus thinks it’s over.

He sits back against Reginald’s old desk and tries to calm his heart, still erratically beating. He doesn’t notice it until Ben points it out, and then the door opens. Klaus is ready to jump up and make an excuse for hiding in the office, but the person peering in is definitely not any of his siblings.

A blue mask towers above him and Klaus opens his mouth to yell, but the man sees this and lunges forwards. A solid fist collides with his head, and Klaus’ ears ring. He feels himself getting picked up and thrown over the man’s shoulder, and out a front door. He can hear his sibling’s voices agonisingly close, can hear Ben telling him to fight, at least to yell, but then he’s outside and his head hits the trunk of a car and he can’t hear anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... what do y'all think? Aha, I hope you like it!


	5. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boom, another long chapter. Enjoy!
> 
> Trigger warning for, well, torture and blood and gore, slander of mental illness, panic attacks.

He drifts in and out of consciousness for a while, feels each bump in the road, feels his limp wrists being moved and tied together by something sticky and thick and unrelenting, and then feels something go over his mouth. A man mutters above him and he can smell… donuts? And then the trunk slams shut again and the engine rattles as the car starts back up again.

He can’t tell how much time he really spent in there, but he knows he’s left in the trunk for at least twenty minutes. He tries to get his wrists free, but whatever’s on them – he thinks, now, that it’s duct tape – is unrelenting and tied tight enough that he can hardly twist them around anyway. He tries to kick out at the tail lights but he’s too tall in a too small place, and can’t properly stretch out or move his legs, cramping from the awkward position he’s been forced into. He can hear cars far off outside but he can’t see anything in the trunk, can’t move, and it makes his ribs tighten against his lungs with panic.

He thinks they’ve almost forgotten about him when the trunk finally pops open, and he recognises the man in the blue mask, but he’s accompanied by a woman in a pink mask who, though he can’t see her face, she looks fed up.

“From that freak house?” She asks, and Blue-Mask nods.

“Bring him inside,” she says, and when she steps back Blue-Mask reaches forwards Klaus screams. He pulls Klaus out of the trunk like he’s Luther’s strength, and Klaus thumps his hands down against his back to no avail.

He looks around, manages to catch the sign of the place they’re at before he’s inside one of the rooms. The curtains are drawn closed and Pink-Mask has pulled a chair out, which Blue-Mask drops him into and then holds his writhing body on. A knife cuts the bonds on his wrists but he hardly manages to get a swing in before Pink forcefully holds his wrists down onto the armrests and ties them down onto that.

Blue lets him go and Klaus pulls at them. Pink disappears for a moment and when she comes back he feels something cold and round presses against his head and he stills.

“I won’t hesitate to put a bullet in every crevice the sun don’t shine in,” she hisses, “do you understand?”

Klaus nods frantically, enough so that Pink puts the gun away from his head though she makes a show of slipping it into her belt. She reaches out and peels the tape off his mouth and almost immediately Klaus turns to the door and yells.

A fist meets his cheek harshly and the tape is replaced over his mouth and Klaus stomps his foot.

“Well,” Pink says, looking at Blue, “I’m always down for a little torturing.”

 

 

Klaus comes to realise that this, surely, isn’t the first time they’ve done this to someone. While Blue really manages to get some good punches and slaps in, Pink prefers to use other things. She puts out cigarettes on his skin and lets the lighter dance along his cheekbone until the metal’s hot and then she holds it against his hand. They threw his coat aside and ripped his shirt off. They take his shoes off and throw them aside and she burns the soles of his feet which continue to ache any time he puts them back down on the floor, and they haven’t even said what they want from him yet.

Pink lets out a sigh and puts the lighter to the side, and she walks off to the side and out of view.

“You should have bought more donuts, I’m starving.” He hears her say, and Blue waves his hands in some gesture.

“We’ll get more later,” he offers, and Klaus tries to compose himself while they discuss desserts.

 “You think he’s ready?” Pink asks, and Klaus nods his head in the hopes that they are looking at him.

“Might as well see,” Blue responds with a shrug, and he hears their footsteps come near and then back into view. Blue’s hand curls in his hair and lifts his head up, and Klaus looks at the clock that they moved into his line of sight so he could see how much time passed. Two hours already.

“You’re part of that group of freaks?” She asks, and Klaus raises an eyebrow just to irritate Pink further. “That Umbrella Academy group. Are you a part of it?” She clarifies, her tone warning him not to joke any further, and Klaus vaguely thinks that she should have started with that. A part of him thinks that they wouldn’t care anyway.

Klaus makes a show of murmuring behind the duct tape, yet he flinches when Pink steps forwards. “You don’t need to talk,” she says, “you can nod, can’t you?”

Klaus closes his eyes but relents and he nods. Technically, he’s a part of the academy. Just not in the way they’re most likely hoping for.

“Good boy,” she coos patronisingly, “that wasn’t so hard! And you’re aware of Number Five?” She asks.

Klaus narrows his eyes, wonders what these people want with Five, and he hesitates. Pink doesn’t like that, apparently, as she shakes her head.

“I’m giving you a chance here, don’t waste it,” she warns him, and Klaus heaves a sigh through his nose and he nods.

“You’re doing great,” she says, pats his sore shoulder, “has he been around the house lately?” She asks, and Klaus tips his head, moans behind his tape, and she ponders for a moment before pulling her gun out and placing it on his forehead. Then she peels the tape off his mouth, and Klaus doesn’t need her to voice the obvious threat.

“Well?”

Klaus shifts in the chair, glances around. Ben’s still there, standing behind them with his arms folded over his chest. He said he wouldn’t leave, and Klaus seeks him out to ground him. If they’re looking for information, they won’t kill him.

“I – I don’t know,” he says. Pink lets out a sigh and shakes her head, makes a show of turning the safety off her gun, and Klaus turns his head away.

“Here I thought you were doing so well,” she tsks, and she finds a new piece of duct tape to put over his mouth. Klaus shakes his head, yells behind it, but she’s already made up her mind and her long thumb nail scratches his cheek as she punches him, almost as hard as Blue had been.

 

 

At some point Pink actually does send Blue off to get donuts, and Klaus tries to get a sneak at his face but Pink threatens to gouge his eyes out if he does and he doesn’t doubt her.

Pink leans against the wall in front of him, watches him shiver in the chair and attempt to tug his wrists free.

“So, I’ve been doing my research,” she says, her nails tapping against the screen of her phone, “and which one are you? Number two? Three? Six?” She asks. “Because that would be impressive. Then again, all your other little freaks actually put up a fight.” Klaus narrows his eyes at her, digs his nails into the wooden arm rests.

She steps forward, takes the tape off slightly and tips her head to the side.

“Fuck off,” he whispers, and then the tape is back and accompanied by a slap.

Klaus has already decided that he’s not about to rat Five out, or the others, even if he thinks that they either haven’t noticed or don’t care that he’s gone. He tells himself that’s not true, but then he remembers that morning in his house, remembers everything Ben has told him. He needs to get home, to find whatever files their dad actually kept of him, and figure out if he should be taken a lot more pills daily or if he’s not going crazy.

He really doesn’t know how to feel. Ben seems so real, so honest, and Klaus thinks about the times he had tried to convince himself he had this power, that power, just so he could be like his siblings. He thinks about Luther brushing him off in every conversation, thinks about getting grounded for trying to meditate with Vanya, thinks about throwing up every day from his pills. He thinks about his orchestra and his apartment that he’s gotten, about the times he and Diego would grab lunch, the times he and Vanya did play music together.

Klaus digs his nails into the chair beneath him and is almost thankful for the distraction from his thoughts Pink’s lighter brings him.

 

 

Blue comes back after half an hour and they swap out. He hears Pink eating and drinking behind him and Blue takes over the questioning with a sort of uninterested tone to his voice.

They only seem interested in Five, at least, which is fine. He doesn’t really know much about Five anyway; since he had turned him down for helping him in the museum, and otherwise, he’s not spoken to him. He doesn’t understand what he meant about the world ending, either, and no one else seemed to be really bothered about that either, so he isn’t sure how to take it.

So it’s not hard for Klaus to dodge their questions. He can pretty much shrug or shake his head for all of them, much to their displeasure, and he can’t help but laugh. His shoulders shake and he closes his eyes, tilts his head back, and strains against the tape-gag as he laughs.

“What’s so funny, freak?” Pink hisses, tugs his hair to make him look up, and he simply moans behind the gag. He’d have thought they’d stop asking him complex questions while he was gagged, honestly.

She rips the tape off and he grimaces, scrunches his nose up. “Ow,” he whines, and then he snickers again.

“Come on then, what’s so funny?” Pink asks, and Klaus tilts his head back.

“Look at this!” He says. “It’s been _hours_. And what have you learned? _Nothing_. Or, maybe the fact that you assholes kidnapped the wrong guy!” He barks out another laugh. He can’t imagine Luther or Vanya in this situation, and it’s Klaus that’s supposed to be the normal, boring one.

Blue hits him across the back of his head once more, and Klaus grunts. His body aches and he just wants to get out.

 

They water board him a couple of times.

It sends his lungs into a confused panic, burning for air even though he knows that he can breathe. They hold his head in place and hardly give him any time when they swap tactics. They’re disturbingly skilled, and Klaus wonders how many people have been in this same situation at their hands. He can’t ponder it for long, however, because a thin rope wraps around his neck and it feels like Blue put all his weight behind it, and they tease him with unconsciousness. They bring him to the brink of unconsciousness, until his body seizes and his lips turn blue, and then they do nothing until he breathes normally again and they start all over again.

Klaus digs his nails into the chair and hopes to pass out.

 

 

 

Pink looks like she’s wondering where to go from there when a phone rings.

Klaus recognises his ringtone of Ariana Grande’s _Dangerous Woman,_ and Pink goes to his coat and pulls out two things; the vibrating phone and his pills. She sets the latter on the side for now and then looks at the phone, shares a hidden look with Blue, and crouches by Klaus.

Her gun makes a reappearance against Klaus’ forehead. “You’re gonna ask to talk to Five, and for him to meet you at this motel,” she says. She nudges Blue, who grabs the lighter from the side and lights it, holds it between his face and the phone, and then Pink presses accept and puts the call on speaker.

“Hey Klaus, you there?”

It’s Diego. Klaus thinks they would have been utterly screwed if it had been Five, for whatever reason Five called him for.

Klaus hesitates and the flame inches closers, warms his cheek, and Klaus clears his throat. “Yeah, yeah, I’m here, what’s up?” He asks, and he almost cringes at how suspicious he sounds. Pink seems to agree with him as she pressed the barrel of her gun against his head harder.

“Are you around? Some psychos fucking shot up the house. Luther, uh… you missed Luther turning out to be… well, you need to see it, really. But yeah… are you okay?” He asks, and Klaus closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to imagine Diego had been lying to him for his entire life. He doesn’t want this care to be all a lie.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m great… sounds like I missed a party, who doesn’t love being shot at by two meatheads,” he jokes, and then, “say, you haven’t happened to have seen Five around, have you? I think he’s wanted,” he asks, ignores the way Blue holds the tip of the flame under his jaw so it just tickles his skin, uncomfortably warm and then hot, too hot, and he hears Diego sigh.

“No, he’s still missing. We were going to go out and look for him, why? You want to join?” He jokes, and Klaus forces a breathy laugh that makes his chest hurt.

“I think I’m peachy, having a great time,” he says. Blue and Pink are sharing looks to each other behind their masks and all Klaus can do is shrug, because they didn’t take into account the idea that no one knows where Five is, really. The gun by his head slips slightly and Klaus watches as Pink stands up, lifts her mask up over her mouth, but before she can offer some ransom into the phone Klaus tips himself to the side and headbutts his phone. It falls from her grasp and clatters to the floor, and when she picks it back up again there’s a crack across its weak screen and it won’t turn on. Klaus laughs victoriously.

“Well, looks like they don’t know where Five is either, and they now think I’m fine. You know, for two fancy torturers, I would have thought you’d be smarter,” he says with a shit-eating grin. He chooses to ignore the fact that he’s also screwed his own chances, but Diego is smart. Hopefully smart enough to connect the hints Klaus had said. He doesn’t think they were that subtle, anyway. Really, he specified the two ‘psychos’ that he otherwise shouldn’t know unless he was there.

Klaus trusts his brother is smart enough and covers his fear with a laugh. Pink says nothing, setting her gun aside and instead going to the kettle and boiling it while fiddling with a teabag.

“Hold the back of the chair,” she says to Blue, “tilt him down.”

Klaus doesn’t question, gripping onto the chair as he’s tilted so he’s almost lying flat, and he closes his eyes.

“Really, no one tells me shit. I’m the one normal person you could have grabbed from that place. Sucks to be you, honestly.” He snickers to himself and cracks his eyes open as he hears Pink walk over. His eyebrows furrow as he sees her still holding the boiled kettle when he thought she was just making some tea or whatever. He opens his mouth only to have a rag shoved into his mouth and Blue holds his jaw closed, and then the water pours down on his chest and Klaus screams until his throat feels raw.

 

 

Pink seems satisfied with the injury and the way Klaus flinches when she reaches near him once the kettle had been emptied out, as if she had needed her fix of hostage-terror that she was so used to receiving from their other hostages. She sets the kettle down on its’ stand and leans back against the counter and lets out a sigh of relief, as if she’d been holding in a ton of tension. “Now maybe you’ll consider cooperation,” she muses bitterly, and Klaus can’t reply except for a dry sob. She says something about going out to look for any of the ‘freaks’ now, and Blue pulls Klaus’ chair into the small closet in the motel room. He hears them gather a few things and then the door closes and locks shut.

Klaus tries not to move too much. The stronger dose of his medication yesterday was wearing off and leaving him light headed, and the small shake his shoulders are doing from his barely-muffled sobs are hurting enough.

Behind him, Ben shifts, and Klaus isn’t sure if it makes him cry more in desperation or in relief.

 

 

_It’s cold. Everything about the place is cold. He tries to huddle himself into the corner of the small building but the coldness oozes out from every edge and corner and seeps into the marrow of his bones. He could see the flakes of snow twisting outside the stained glass windows, too, and wind whistles through cracks in the building. He tore his blazer slightly trying to squeeze himself through the bars over the window at the back that has no glass over it, but it was to no avail._

_They cackle at his pathetic, useless attempts to escape, to block their screams out. They sound like they’ve not used their voices for years; deep and croaking and dead. They know who he is now, know what he can do, and they drip blood over him, reach for his throat and laugh when he flinches and they still faze through him. They describe how they’re going to gut him, hang him from the window with his own intestines. When he dies he’ll be stuck here to have their claws tear his throat out and he’ll howl at the glass when living people walk past him and beg for help that will never come._

_Light floods the tomb and Klaus scrambles to his feet as he faces his father. He takes one look at Klaus and closes the door again._

_The ghosts hound him._

Klaus struggles against the tape on his wrists, but it’s almost tight enough to stop his circulation to the tips of his fingers, and all he manages to do is irritate his wounds. Behind him, Ben tries to help him breathe and to ground him, and Klaus drops his head and digs his nails into the scratched wood of the chair’s arm rests. He doesn’t know how long he’s been in this closet for, and he wonders if Diego’s found him yet. Evidently not, but Klaus can hope.

He tips his head back towards Ben, and somehow the saint simply understands.

Ben talks. He tells Klaus what it’s like being dead, tells Klaus that he never really liked that statue of him in the garden but he’d hold a grudge on Luther and Diego for breaking it if only to joke around with them. He tells Klaus things that Klaus doesn’t know about them that Ben had seen when he was; well, doing ghost things, apparently. He comments on Klaus’ music as well, and he just talks until the door opens again. No one comes to the closet, though, and Klaus listens as a vacuum cleaner turns on instead, and he realises it must be a cleaner.

He strains his throat to yell again, leaning closer to the closet door, pleading for him to be heard. The vacuum cleaner turns off and he hears it getting unplugged, and then the door closes and he’s left alone once more.

Klaus drops his head and kicks out with sore feet. He moans into the makeshift gag and cries.

 

 

The door buzzes open and Klaus almost misses it. He hears more footsteps, Blue and Pinks familiar voices, and then they pause.

“You forgot the do not disturb sign,” Pink says, and he hears Blue mutter a curse. They hurry over to the closet, pulling the doors open, and he hears a loud sigh come from both of them as they find out he’s still trapped.

“Christ, he’s still hear,” Blue mutters in relief, and they pull him back out of the closet, jostling his aching body, and Klaus closes his eyes again until they set him back down and he slumps into the blood-stained seat.

“Enjoy your rest while we were away?” Pink asks, and Klaus takes the chance that they’ve forgotten about their masks to take in their faces and memorises them.

Klaus mutters under his breath, tips his head to the side, and Blue takes the tape off his mouth as well as the rag they’d left in, which had completely dried his mouth out. He almost wishes they’d water board him again.

“Just let me go,” he mutters, shaking his head. He tries to sit in a way that’s comfortable, but that seems impossible at this point. “I’ve told you everything… dog tags, apocalypse and all… please, please, just let me go.” He drops his gaze, shaking his head.

“We still haven’t got what we want though,” Pink says, “and until we do, you’re not going anywhere.”

Klaus groans. “I’ve already told you. Five isn’t coming,” he snorts, and Pink shrugs.

“I’m not too sure about that. We left him a little message,” she informs him, and Klaus lets out a sigh. At least he had tried to shake their tail as best as he could.

“So, you just sit tight. I can promise a bullet to the head is as painless as we get.”

She gets up, patting his shoulder harder than necessary, and she wanders off to the side where some short blonde woman was, rambling loudly in what he assumes to be Russian. They don’t seem to notice her. Blue has a donut perched in his grasp and he leisurely wanders to the side. He absentmindedly picks up the little bottle of pills they had pulled out of his coat and since ignored, and he turns it in his grasp to read the label and then raises his eyebrows.

“Oh, that’s interesting,” he says and he watches Pink wander over and examine his medication, and she hums.

“Schizophrenia, huh?” She repeats, and she hands the bottle back to Blue. “You even been with us for the past ten hours?” She snorts, and Klaus sighs.

“That’s not how it works,” he mutters tiredly, “and yes to both.”

There’s not many pills in the bottle anymore; he powered through them this month. Blue toys with a couple in his hand before dropping them and the bottle back onto the side, and Klaus cringes as a few roll off onto the floor.

“So you’re the crazy one of the family, huh? What kind of fucked up shit do you see?” Pink questions, and Klaus sighs.

 _“Ты убила нас всех!”_ The seemingly invisible Russian cries in the corner and when she turns to look at them Klaus blows out a breath and cringes away from the gore.

“Can’t you just let me go?” He asks, and Pink snorts.

“I don’t think we can trust you on your own, now. Shouldn’t you have a caretaker? Do the voices tell you to hurt us?” She taunts, and Klaus closes his eyes to stop from rolling them.

“Maybe you’re right about no one coming for you. Maybe they’re happy to have you off their hands. What do you think?” She raises an eyebrow Blue, who nods solemnly.

“Oh, yeah. Surely, they must be so glad. We’re doing them a favour,” he says, and Pink nods.

“Stop it,” Klaus moans, his cheeks burning as he refuses to look back up at them.

“I almost feel sorry for you. Imagine growing up in a family famous for being perfect and strong, and look at you now. You can’t even get out of duct tape.”

He grips the chair beneath his hands, tries to ignore them, but they don’t stop.

“Hell, we don’t even need to go after Five. Just don’t give him some of these and he’ll go after his own brother because the voices told him to,” she adds, and Klaus grits his teeth almost painfully.

“Stop it,” he repeats, louder, and they laugh.

“What are you going to do about it? Klaus, is it? You’re literally incapable of helping yourself here,” they pester, and Klaus’ throat tightens, his mouth working silently because it’s true.

“Just – just shut _up_ , please,” he groans out. He can hear them messing with his pills, shaking the bottle and reading out the daily dosage, count the hours he’s gone without them – and they don’t even know it’s been longer. His muscles tense in shame and frustration and pain ripples from his multitude of wounds. He hears a gun’s safety turn off and feels its’ cool barrel sit between his eyes.

“Maybe we should just take him out now, do everyone a favour,” Pink muses. “At least then the rest of them wouldn’t have to worry about doing it themselves one day.”

Klaus refuses to believe that they would ever do that, but what if they had to? If Klaus snapped at them and tried to hurt them? What if they would find it easier to have him die unfortunately now rather than later.

“I said, shut up!” Klaus yells, and his fingertips burn as energy leaves him in a sharp burst and his captors get thrown back. They hit the wall and stay down for now, unconscious or winded, and the rebound makes Klaus fall back in his chair and tears the tape on his thin wrists.

When Klaus gets onto his knees, his hands are still faintly thrumming with a blue glow and the Russian woman has never yelled louder. The room is full of yelling corpses, all screaming that they killed them, they killed their family, that Klaus needs to help them now. He can’t breathe but he hears footsteps coming down the row of motel rooms, and he sees the unscrewed vent and goes for it.

He grabs the expensive-looking briefcase on his way as he crawls out and he runs until his battered body threatens to give out, and he falls onto a bus and clutches the briefcase like it’s his only anchor to reality.

Shaking fingers unlock it and in blue, bright, too much blue that he isn’t sure if it’s his or the briefcases devour him, blind him, and Klaus’ scream gets lost in time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... That's that. I hope you liked it, I guess? Feel free to leave a kudos or a comment if you did; I love hearing your opinions and feedback. I hope you look forwards to future chapters, thank you for reading!


	6. Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, Vietnam. Enjoy!

He feels the air being forced from his lungs as he hits the ground, and Klaus immediately takes his surroundings in, his hands clawing at the briefcase still on his lap.

It’s dark and humid and he’s in some large tent and only one man is awake and looking at him oddly. Neither of them can react, however, because there’s a whistle and a crash outside and all the men are on their feet and when Klaus doesn’t stand, someone yells at him to get himself together and find a pair of pants.

He does as he’s told because everyone is in a rush to get out of here, and he doesn’t think he can really fight.

It’s not hard to put two and two together, though. The psychopaths he just escaped from (killed, he killed them without even touching them) had been obsessed with finding Five, who was a time traveller. It made sense to assume that they were also time travellers, in the more professional sense. He can tell that he’s quite obviously not in the 2000’s, though he isn’t sure when, and he hasn’t had a chance to reach for that briefcase again.

They’re hurried out of the tent and they walk for an hour with all their belongings before they get on a bus that takes them away from the smell of smoke.

His mind races and threatens to drown him, but someone – the same man that had woken up when Klaus landed – leans forwards.

“First time out of country?” He asks, and Klaus doesn’t know what else to say other than a shaky “yeah”.

The man nods with a sympathetic smile. “Yeah, shit’s crazy, I know. I’m Dave,” he says and he holds out a hand, and Klaus has half a mind to only shake it to see if he’s real, but Dave seems nice.

Klaus shakes his hand and smiles at him. “Klaus.”

 

 

The bus takes them to the reserve trenches where Dave explains they’ll be there for however long they need to be, and then they’ll go back to the front lines, rotate to safety miles behind reserve trenches, and then move back up.

They seem confused as to why Klaus doesn’t seem to have any uniform of his own, but he’s injured and bloody and dazed and it’s easy to pass him off as having gotten stuck in a ditch or some barbed wire and only just making it back. And it’s not like they don’t have an abundance of unused equipment that fits Klaus, so he quickly finds himself with a helmet on his head and a pair of thick boots on his feet.

The reserve trenches are still close enough to hear the gunshots in the distance and see the horizon light up with explosions. Everyone’s tense, but it’s more of a light hearted thing. Klaus gets to know the people he’s joined. They welcome him as a newbie without question and Klaus gets sucked into military life.

He learns how to shoot a gun within five minutes, and it’s just luck that he’s always been a fast learner. He learns that it’s 1968 and the war’s been going on longer than anyone expected it to, but they can’t stop fighting now.

Klaus learns how to cut holes into leather so that the mud and water from monsoon season can try and drain out at the top of their boots because the ones at the bottom just get clogged and do nothing to save their feet. He learns that they’re supposed to have heating pads with their rations but they hardly ever get them so some men risk the danger of using minor explosives to heat up their food. It’s never enough and is always unpleasant to eat, but it’s all they have. He learns how to look out for traps when they’re out on patrol, and he learns that Dave has a beautiful smile and a better laugh.

They talk about families. Dave has a younger sister and a mother, and his father died in the army before, which motivated Dave to join up despite his mothers wishes and pleads.

Klaus doesn’t wish to talk about his family. It’s too confusing to explain to someone who wasn’t there when the whole Umbrella Academy drama went on.

“It’s… complicated,” he tells Dave one night. “Our dad was a prick and I never really talked to my siblings much. I…” His hands turn into fists but he forces them to lay flat on his chest. He doesn’t know how he did what he did to Pink and Blue, but he doesn’t want to risk it happening again and certainly not to Dave. His hands shake and Dave sets his own on Klaus’ shoulder.

“You don’t have to talk about it,” he assures him, and Klaus lets out a sad laugh.

“It’s complicated,” he repeats with the shake of his head, “I… I think they’ve lied to me my entire life. It’s… crazy. I don’t know if they’ve been lying to me or if I’m just crazy. I don’t know,” he admits, and Dave’s thumb draws circles on his dust-coated shoulder.

“Well, I’m sorry Klaus. But maybe you don’t need them?” He suggests, and Klaus tilts his head, urges Dave on. “After this – the war, everything – you can leave. Don’t go back to them. Make a life for yourself now. Be what you want to be,” he tells him, and Klaus closes his eyes. If only.

“I wish,” he says with a forcd laugh, “that sounds amazng.”

“As far as I know, you don’t owe them anything. If you can, then just leave. Do what you want; have a kid, or something. Or go back and try and talk to them. It doesn’t sound like they hate you. Maybe it was for your best interest.”

Klaus tries to think like that. He doesn’t owe them anything; he could stay here, if he wanted. And then Reginald would never adopt him, because he’d never have been born then. He could simply settle down as a war hero in a different state, a different country. It sounds nice.

And then he imagines trying to talk to them all. Maybe they didn’t know; maybe Reginald kept it from them all. In that case, Klaus supposes he couldn’t hold it against them. He should have asked Ben more of what he knew, but it was too late now; it seemed Ben hadn’t came with him to Vietnam.

“You know better than I, Klaus. But there’s always an option,” Dave says, and they drop the subject of family for the topic of their division.

 

 

The men in his division are nice. They hum songs on patrol and teache Klaus the songs as well, and they play games in their spare time and talk about random things. A tall, dark haired man named Gary shows him magic tricks with a pack of cards he bought once in the city and they laugh when Klaus fails to do so.

They wash as best as they can with the water they have out in the trenches, but Klaus finds that it’s pointless. He’ll only get covered in more dirt and dust and sweat within the next few hours. It’s not comfortable, but like the others, he gets used to it.

He learns how to shoot a gun with precision by shooting cans they set up, and he learns how to put a gas mask on in under ten seconds. Despite being all lanky limbs and thin muscle, he learns how to fireman carry a soldier in full kit out of mud. He learns that Dave knows how to stargaze and that Dave got the star of David engraved into his dog tags because he grew up Jewish and he doesn’t want that part of him to be forgotten if he dies out here.

 

They spend three relatively peaceful weeks in reserve trenches. He gets to know the routines of everything, gets to know the men around him, and it’s a distraction from the situation he left behind. He never sees Ben while he’s here, and in the reserve trenches everything’s peaceful aside from his sleep, where every decaying face he’s ever seen comes back to haunt him.

After three weeks of what Klaus could almost pass off as some extreme boy scout camping trip, they get moved into the city rather than the front lines, for some reason. They don’t question it.

 

The bus ride is long and tense for the first hour or two, but once they get past a familiar landmark the soldiers seem to have marked personally, they cheer and they sing and they talk about all the discos and bars there is in the city, all the foreign girls who just love the heroic soldiers, and Klaus switches out every pronoun when he’s asked to retell his love stories from a he to a she.

They share a room with seven other men, and Dave is one of the ones in Klaus’ room. He takes the bunk beneath Klaus’ because they learn Klaus can’t wake up to see something so close to his face or else he panics and they have to wait for him to calm himself down. At night Klaus will hang over the edge of his bunk to talk to Dave, and sometimes they’ll crack open a window and share a cheap cigarette between them.

 

 

“That’s the big dipper,” he whispers one night, and Klaus leans out of the window to follow Dave’s pointing finger while smoke tumbles past his lips.

“You’d see it better if we went outside,” he comments and then raises his eyebrows in offer. Klaus gives Dave a dubious look.

“It’s quite dark out,” he states, and it is dark. It’s dark and when it’s dark hands reach for him and voices from his childhood nightmares echo from the shadows and all Klaus wants to do is not think about his real life.

“It’s just a little bit of dark, Klaus. Don’t go telling me you’re scared of the dark?” Dave teases, but he stops when Klaus’ cheeks heat up and he determinedly focuses on the smouldering cigarette in his grasp.

“Hey, I’ll be right there. It’ll be nice, you’ll get to see the stars,” he goes for instead, and the tone in his voice is irresistible to Klaus. His shoulders slump  in defeat and Dave smiles, tells him to finish off the cigarette and then he takes his wrist and they sneak past sleeping soldiers as if they’re children sneaking out on a school trip.

It’s dark and eerily quiet outside and Klaus doesn’t like it. The towering trees wave in the breeze and cast shadows around the ground, and Klaus sees rotten claws, moaning mouths that wheeze his name in their last breath.

Dave drapes an arm around Klaus’ tense shoulders and plays it cool and casual, and though he jumps at first, Klaus melts into Dave’s warm side and follows him out onto a grassy knoll where they sit down, side by side, and Klaus can see the stars better out here.

“What are you going to do after the war?” Klaus asks him. Dave has been infatuated with the stars since they came out, but Klaus finds himself more drawn to their reflection in his eyes, the curve of his strong jaw and the heat radiating off his body next to his.

Dave looks back to him, and then he shrugs.

“I’m not sure, honestly. Settle down with someone hopefully. Maybe adopt kids if we both wanted some. Live on a farm, maybe. Just live it out peacefully, y’know,” he shrugs, and Klaus nods his head.

“You?” Dave asks, and Klaus shakes his head.

“Settling down sounds nice.”

 

 

They go to a bar the next night, and Klaus doesn’t have to worry about medication making him sick when it’s mixed with alcohol, so he gets drunk, probably for the first time.

Klaus decides it’s nice. It makes him feel more confident and although he really can’t stand straight for long, he doesn’t need to because the music is great and they’re all dancing.

He fills two shots with whiskey and he and Dave interlock arms and down one, then two, and back on the dance floor Klaus bumps into Dave’s back and catches the way he looks at him.

 

 

They wander off to some corridor restricted to the staff, claiming to need some peace from the loud music, and they lean against a poorly painted wall and talk. Dave says he’s never dated someone he’s truly loved because he can’t, and Klaus tells him he’s never truly dated someone because they were never allowed to interact with anyone outside of their ‘school’.

Dave cups the side of Klaus’ face with a large, calloused hand and the touch is soft and warm, and when Klaus leans forwards Dave does the same.

Klaus has never had someone that makes his heart race under his ribcage, never made him feel like he’d be willing to lay everything on the life to protect and be with them, has never felt like he had been missing out on so much in his life before, but he feels it all now and so much more. Dave’s hand is warm on his hip and on his cheek, and his lips are gentle and so soft that Klaus melts. He decides that staying here for a while longer won’t be so bad.

 

 

They don’t talk about it, but Dave’s hands linger on Klaus and he stands closer to him, lets his eyes linger on his body or his lips for Klaus to catch his gaze, and they go out to stargaze by themselves more. 

 

 

In the trenches they don’t have enough beds with the new recruits joining them, so no one bats an eye when Klaus lets two recruits share his small cot while he shares one with Dave. It’s normal, and Klaus jokes that he’s a cuddler and sleeps with his head on Dave’s shoulder, and Dave’s fingers brush Klaus’ hip.

Oddly enough, he sleeps better like that. He feels instantly grounded when he wakes up with Dave’s hand on his side or his hip, his breath warm on his neck, and it always eases him out of a nightmare. On the rare occasion, he doesn’t have a nightmare when he sleeps like that.

 

 

The go on patrols together with Gary and a short blonde called Ryan, and they sing _Keep The Home Fires Burnin’_ together, and they ignore the gunfire that seems to grow louder and closer as they head further through the valley and closer to danger. As they do, Klaus notices the men stop singing and laughing and he sees men, pale and bloody, standing in the shadows, being ignored by everyone else. He sees men on stretchers covered in dust and blood and get hauled into choppers that make dust fly into Klaus’ eyes.

The mountainous terrain is hard to walk up and he feels the leather of his boots dig into his heels. They’re hurried on, marching in lines and stomping through overgrowth and paths pounded into the earth by hundreds of boots. They join the forces on the base in the mountain side, hiding out in old huts and makeshift ones from the trees and twigs around, and they set up in the places injured and dead soldiers had left behind.

 

 

They have to escort supplies from point A to point B to point C while on alert for any ambush, and Klaus feels the impact of an explosion throw him to the ground for the first time. He sees Gary bleed out in the dust, his legs blown off from the knees down, and Klaus hears him screaming long after he dies.

 

 

Klaus chokes on smoke as buildings go up in flames and napalm, and he hurries after the sound of comrades running to their next shelter that soon follows in the path of destruction they leave behind. It spreads to trees and bush and Klaus would clamp his hands over his ears as a chopper nears them if he wasn’t clinging to his gun.

 

 

In the beginning, Klaus had wished for some rain, some wind, a breeze to follow them and cool them down, but that never happens. Instead, they stay dry until monsoon season hits and he’s always soaked to the bone and caked in mud. He can’t feel his fingers or his feet but they have more important things to be focusing on.

 

 

Klaus has never been a violent person.

He doesn’t like confrontation or violence, but here he finds himself shooting without hesitation because it’s either them or Dave, and Klaus knows that he can’t let Dave die.

For all the bullets that rain down on them, it’s surreal more than anything. It feels less real than any nightmare or hallucination he had months ago, gunshots muffled in his ears, screams for medics far off in the distance, and it never really feels real until he experiences it.

He’s a bit too slow, or they’re too fast, or he’s too careless, but before he can duck back behind a crumbling wall something whistles and he’s thrown back by the impact of a bullet thudding into his shoulder.

He sees stars and hears bells for a while, and when he tries to breathe it doesn’t work; the air gets confused and lost in his tight throat, and he feels helping hands under his arms try and pull him back to cover but it makes his shoulder scream, and he echoes it.

He sees Dave’s face above his, feels him press down on his oozing wound and sees his mouth silently yell for a medic, dammit. He sees him take his dog tags from his neck and feels them settle on Klaus’ own neck, and Klaus sees nothing.

 

 

Recovery is hard. Not only because it’s agonising and slow, but he has no idea what’s happening. They say if it had been any worse he might have been eligible for discharge, but he just needs to let it heal before he can return to his division. Klaus thinks he should have been allowed discharge anyway, but he knew they needed as many men as they could get, and unless he was crippled, dying or dead, then he’d be sent back out. He doesn’t mind, for some reason, and he knows the reason has a beautiful smile and can point out any constellation on a clear night.

 

 

The hospitals are horrific. People moan and cry and they don’t seem to notice Stephen in the corner with his face missing, burned off, and Klaus tries not to listen to the way blood catches in his throat each time he breathes.

 

 

Klaus meets his division in the city again, and Dave is alive. He has to stop himself from wrapping himself around him in an unrelenting hug, but they do later. Everyone goes to celebrate their return and to drink to forget those that didn’t return with them, and Klaus sits in their room with Dave alone.

A cigarette balances between Dave’s lips and his hand moves across the paper of his sketchbook, and Klaus promises he won’t look because Dave wants to draw him. He’s content enough with breathing in the smoke that falls out of Dave’s mouth, and once he plucks the cigarette away and replaces it with his own lips because he needs to be close to him.

Dave doesn’t hesitate long before reciprocating the action, and Klaus’ shoulders shake minutely and his eyes sting. He tastes the salt from his tears and Dave cups his cheeks and coaxes words out of him.

“I’m just… it’s just, Dave, I don’t – you could have died. I wouldn’t have known. I – you can’t die out there, Dave, you can’t. You can’t,” he says, feels his ribs crush down onto his lungs, and Dave runs his hands down his back and holds him close.

He hushes him gently with reassurances that he would never leave him, and that Dave wants Klaus to give him his dog tags back when they’re on a bus or a chopper back home. Klaus laughs through his desperation and swears he will.

 

 

They drink a lot the next night. Everyone’s still trying to forget the fresh-faced, young recruits that never returned from their first experience in the front lines, and Klaus watches as Logan, one from their division, winks in victory as he follows some woman out of the bar.

Klaus drinks enough to give himself some liquid courage and he pulls Dave down another corridor that they shouldn’t be allowed in, but they go there anyway. There’s a supply closet and Klaus falls inside, a tangle of hurried hands and lips. He fists his hands in Dave’s shirt and pulls him close and his back hits a wall and he hooks one of his long legs around Dave’s hips.

Dave is tense, full of 1960’s homophobia and alert for anyone that might walk past, but his fingers search under Klaus’ shirt, through his hair, and Klaus kisses the corners of his lips.

“Klaus…” He murmurs, looks back at the door. “What if we get caught… We can’t do this, Klaus-“

“We won’t,” Klaus reassures him, runs his thumb along his cheek and shakes his head. “We won’t. I promise,” he offers, and Dave lets out a low laugh.

“You promise?” He repeats, and Klaus grins and nods. “Well, I trust you, Klaus,” he says, and Klaus swears he’d never let Dave down, never risk Dave in any situation, and he welcomes the way his hands feel on his skin, gentle and careful and loving.

 

“You’re special to me,” Dave says, his forehead hot and sweaty against Klaus’, and he knows he’s searching for the right words. “Klaus, you’re real special to me.”

Klaus smiles in the darkness, runs his hand down Dave’s arm and finds his hand.

“Yeah, well, I love you too, Dave,” he says, and Dave lets out a breathy laugh, nods his head.

“Yeah,” he agrees, “I love you.”

 

 

He doesn’t need the briefcase, he thinks, but a part of him holds onto it. He had opened it multiple times since arriving and each time he’d come face to face with the inner workings of it, but there’d never been a blue flash, he’d never found himself sitting on a bus in present day again, and Klaus decides he doesn’t care. He just needs to stay here for a while longer, and then he and Dave can return home – no, they can make a home for themselves – and Klaus can give him the dog tags back.

 

 

They get tattoos the next night. All of them in their division; they wander down to some sketchy tattoo parlour and the artist offers to do it for free because of their service, and they get their division tattooed onto their biceps.

 

 

It’s odd, no longer being a newbie. He’s even considered one of the older members of the division that’s still alive and fighting in the front lines as new faces get sent up. They’re horrifically young and their training had been rushed and Klaus is terrified for them.

He tries to keep the mood light for them as they leave the city and return to gunfire and artillery bombardments, but they’re all solemn and anxious.

 

 

Klaus feels the air move by his ear, a bullet narrowly missing him, and he flinches behind sandbags and laughs. “Christ on a cracker, that was a close one!” He announces. Beside him, Dave laughs.

“You’re crazy, Klaus!” He says over the racket of war, and Klaus grins at him, dust and dirt caked into his skin.

There’s a high whistle and somewhere to his right a shell shakes the ground, and Klaus ducks down.

 

 

He falls asleep only because of exhaustion, his ears deaf to gun shots and whistles, the ground shaking just lulling him further into sleep. They don’t get much sleep out here, and they tend to know not to touch one another whenever they see a soldier that does manage to get some sleep. Check if they have a pulse, maybe, and leave them be.

They sleep on hard floors or against dirt walls, under thick trees, and Klaus feels a hand shake him roughly.

“Get down, Klaus!” Dave yells, and they hit the ground from instinct as dirt blows over them from a too-close shell. They clasp their hands over their heads and Klaus closes his eyes to block out the image the pained screams from soldiers are accompanied by, and he prays it doesn’t get them.

 

 

They hurry to fix their defences but the enemy advances on them, and the nearest soldiers throw themselves onto the still standing machine guns in front of them. Klaus does, too, though he’s never worked a machine gun and he remembers how fast they can mow down tens of hundreds of soldiers. He hears people yell, hears the command, “shoot, Klaus, shoot!”

He does.

 

 

He eats cold rations in a daze, hardly aware of Dave’s knee pressing against his, and he tries to block out the screams. He doesn’t speak Vietnamese but he doesn’t have to to know the soldiers he’d mowed down on the other team, the dead ones that surround him, are screaming that he’ll die.

 

 

It was weird, being a part of a division.

The men around him trusted him with his lives, and he’d never had anywhere near that kind of trust before. They trust his opinion, what he has to say, trust him with a gun to save their lives, and he’s part of something bigger that he’s not used to, but he likes it.

 

 

They return to the city, swap out with other soldiers, and they talk all night because all they can see, every one of them, when they close their eyes is the faces of the dead. Klaus doesn’t need to close his eyes to see them.

 

 

One night Dave grabs his hand and pulls him outside. It’s warm and clear and Klaus settles in for another session of star gazing that he whole-heartedly welcomes from Dave, eager to see his eyes light up with passion as he talks about the stars and his sister at home, his garden, the street dog he used to feed on his way back from school.

Klaus feels vulnerable with Dave. He feels vulnerable but also the strongest he’s ever been. He wants to strip his person bare of every layer of defences he’s set up and let Dave see it all. He wants to see Dave in the moments where it doesn’t matter; wants to wake up to his sleeping face illuminated by the sun shining through the window, wants to see the wrinkle around his eyes when he laughs.

Klaus had never felt love, but when he looks at Dave he thinks that’s what he feels. He welcomes it, if that is what it is, and if it didn’t risk him being shot in this time period Klaus would gladly stand up and scream that he, Klaus Hargreeves, is in love with Dave Katz. That he wants a future on a little farm with some cats and adopted children with Dave Katz.

He kisses Dave, then, stops his talk of the stars and Dave doesn’t seem to mind as he laughs and runs his hand through Klaus’ slightly overgrown hair.

“You alright there?” He asks jokingly, and Klaus closes his eyes.

“Never better.”

 

 

He doesn’t experience anything like he did all that time ago with Pink and Blue. He even tries it, but his hands do nothing, he stays rooted on the floor, and he thinks that, if not for the soldiers he knows for a fact are dead, maybe he really has just been hallucinating Ben and dreaming he’s something more than normal for nothing.

 

 

Klaus ducks down under their wall of sandbags for protection, presses his body down deeper into the hard-packed dirt beneath them and waits for it to stop shaking from explosions.

They’re winning, he thinks. Or maybe not. He isn’t sure; he’s never been sure of that. All he knows is that he doesn’t stop shooting.

He feels a bullet whiz past his ear, singe his hair, and he drops down with a laugh.

“Christ, that was a close one!” He laughs, glances to his left. “Huh, Dave?” He grins, but Dave doesn’t return the grin or the laugh like he usually does. His helmet is slumped to the side, covering his face, and Klaus reaches out with his foot to nudge his leg.

“Huh, Dave?” He repeats, and receives the same lack of reaction. He feels his chest tighten in disbelief and he drops his gun to the side, scrambles to Dave’s sigh and rolls him onto his back. There’s a large stain of blood on his chest, trickling blood too fast and it stains Klaus’ hands and his nails as he tries to stop it.

“God, no, no, no, Dave,” he whispers, his throat unable to let himself talk any louder. “Dave, Dave, hey, look at me, yeah? Look at me, right here, Dave,” he says, smiles down at him. Dave’s eyes twitch in his direction, look glossy and unclear but they still land on Klaus, and he nods encouragingly. “Good, good, keep looking – fuck, fuck, I need a medic!” He yells, looking over his shoulder. There’s too many casualties, too much gun fire for a stretcher to get out here, but he doesn’t stop trying.

“Somebody get me a medic! God dammit, I need a medic!” He screams, feels his voice tear and he turns back to Dave beneath him. He holds his cheeks, tried to rub colour back into his skin but it only works because his fingers are slick with Dave’s blood.

“No, no, no, you can’t – _Dave_ , _please_ , _no_ ,” he cries, feels horror seize his body and he can’t stop shaking, can’t breathe, because they were going to get a farm after this, were going to adopt some random street cats and be happy.

A bomb shakes the ground beside him and Klaus throws himself over Dave’s lifeless body.

 

 

They lose too many people and they retreat. Klaus doesn’t talk to any of them on the way back. Dave’s blood is on his hands, under his nails, on his clothes, and he can hardly breathe. He doesn’t want to.

 

 

He tries to go back. He pries the briefcase open and tries to go back to yesterday, to stop all of this, and he’s devoured in a blinding flash of blue and he thinks it works. He’ll open his eyes and he’ll be in this tent with Dave sleeping beside him.

 

 

The bus goes over a speed bump and Klaus recognises it too well.

It’s the same bus he was on ten months ago, an hour ago, and the briefcase didn’t work, never works the way he wants it to. He clutches it with fingers still covered in Dave’s blood and when he breathes it comes back out as a sob, and he feels pain lace through his veins, drown his lungs and seize his heart.

 

 

He falls off at the next stop, and he doesn’t know what to do. Dave is dead, died because Klaus hadn’t kept an eye on him, thought that war would spare the two of them, and he should know better. Nothing good happens to Klaus, and this would be no different.

He slams the briefcase onto a bench, then again and again and again, and when he throws it it bursts into flames like napalm and Klaus screams like he should have to get a medic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing good ever lasts for Klaus. At least he can see the dead, I guess?   
> I hope you enjoyed, in some sad, angsty way


	7. Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A really short chapter to give y'all a separate link to what'll be next. Probably a similar short chapter next as well, but very important nonetheless.  
> Either way, I hope you enjoy!

Klaus pounds his fists against rough ground until he feels stones break through his skin, and he sobs dryly.

“It’s not _fair_!” He cries between sobs. His nails scratch the pavement, feels foreign when he’s been so used to dirt and leaves. His body shakes and he feels like he might vomit, his chest heaving and throat straining for air. He closes his eyes and sees Dave’s lifeless gaze, the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, and a strangled sound escapes him.

It was never supposed to happen. They were supposed to begin their trip back to America in less than a month. They were going to be fine, safe, happy. Dave was going to see his mother and his sister again and they were going to move somewhere nice, going to own a little farm and Klaus was going to make pancakes in the morning for him and it was going to be more than perfect.

It wasn’t _fair_.

They both promised they’d get out of there together, both served more than enough time in Hell, got to know one another in a way that Klaus has never experienced with someone else and he doesn’t want to. He wants Dave, with his calloused hands and his awkward smile when they have their photos taken, the glint in his eyes when he talks about his younger sister at school or the stars or their farm. Klaus would be content to live out his life from the 1960s and not disturb anything or anyone else, wouldn’t be a bother to anything, would relieve the future Umbrella Academy, if anything. But it seems like that had never been an option for him. It had been close, sure, so close Klaus was panicking about what state or country had good soil for farming, and then the future shattered in his grasp in a drizzle of sticky red.

Klaus has never asked for much. Has never wanted much. He only wanted one thing and he feels foolish now that he thought he might ever get it.

Klaus’ shaking hands find his dog tags, still around his neck from months ago, and he feels his voice crack as he yells.

 

 

He doesn’t really care about any of the people around him, but he comes to think that one person must have called for help when he didn’t stop yelling. He hears the sirens of a car, of an air raid, and when the men in modern uniforms touch him, Klaus screams.

He hates everyone. Everyone who has turned their back on him, mocked him, everyone that never cared that he was alive and real. He hates the people now, two police officers that don’t understand that Dave is dead, that everything Klaus has ever known or loved has been torn away from him, try and _dare_ to interfere _now_. He thinks he might have hit one of them because he feels his arms be wrenched behind his back, _Blue’s_ _hands_ _strong_ _and_ _rough_ _and_ _Pink’s_ _lighter_ _flicking_ _to_ _life_ _by_ _his_ _ear_ , _the_ _kettle_ _boils_ _again_ _and_ _echoes_ _in_ _his_ _ear_ , cool metal binds his wrists behind his back, and he falls back to his knees like dead weight and he gasps for air.

Boots appear in his vision on the ground in front of him, and someone kneels down. A woman with a gentle voice coaxes him to open his eyes and look at her, tells the other officers to shut up until and she tells him it’s _alright_. Klaus wishes that were true but it’s far from it and he laughs between sobs. She tells him this repeatedly though, until he’s not spluttering for air and he doesn’t feel like he’s about to pass out.

“My name’s Eudora Patch,” she tells him, shows him his badge though Klaus doesn’t really care if she’s a fake officer that Pink or Blue sent after him or if she actually cares, but the name is vaguely familiar.

“You’re Diego’s brother, right? Klaus, is it?” She asks, and Klaus’ chest tightens and he nods slightly.

“We’ve been looking for you since the motel. I’m glad you’re okay. We’re going to take you back to the station, yeah, and you can sit there and I’ll call Diego to come pick you up, yeah?” She says, and though it sounds like he has a choice Klaus doubts that. Either way, she manages to make the officers uncuff him and she offers him water in the back of a cruiser. Klaus doesn’t take it, doesn’t look back at her, but he wraps his arms around himself and feels tears follow cold tracks on his cheeks.

They offer to let him wash up in the bathroom but Klaus just sits in the chair he’s offered next to Eudora’s desk and drops his head in shaking hands.

He hears people move around him like they’re marching back from patrol, and Klaus wonders how useful police guns can really be. His was sturdy in his hands and didn’t have much of a rebound against his shoulder either. It shot straight and far and Klaus knew the impact it had against a person. It’s odd to imagine the same in a small pistol for every officer.

A hand settles on his knee and it’s too small and clean to be Dave’s, and Dave’s dead anyway. He feels a sob fall past his lips again and he looks up to Eudora. Diego stands over her shoulder, looking… Klaus isn’t sure. Upset? Disappointed? Disgusted? Worried? He doesn’t know, doesn’t care.

“Thanks, Eudora. I’ll take him home,” he says, and then crouches in front of Klaus.

“Hey, Klaus. How about I take you home?” He says. Klaus knows Diego has never really been a soft, doting brother, though Klaus supposes he’s gotten closer to that side of him than he thinks the rest of their siblings has. He can tell he’s making an effort here, however, and Klaus doesn’t really care what happens. He’ll go home, or the academy, or back in time; he doesn’t care.

Diego urges him to his feet with gentle hands on his dusty forearms, and he follows in a daze. He can’t hear him talk over the racket of gunfire and whistles of nearby bombs that shake the ground and he’d fall over from the impact if not for Diego keeping an arm around him.

“Odd fashion sense, but you make the army look work,” he tries, and Klaus lets out a bitter laugh. The pants are a little too baggy on him, sit low on his hips, and the boots are heavy and cold. Dave’s dog tags are hidden under the shirt he’s wearing, and his jackets are torn at the shoulders because they all cut them off because it was too hot.

He falls into the passenger seat of Diego’s car and doesn’t bother with a seat belt. Diego’s tense, watching Klaus slump against the window and hug himself with bloody hands. His lips move silently. He recalls the constellations Dave pointed out to him and his lips smile at the fond memory.

“What did they do to you, Klaus?” Diego murmurs, and Klaus feels a laugh bubble under his chest. He stills has fading scars on the soles of his feet from the lighter, on his chest from the boiled water. He can run his fingers over pale cigarette burns on his shoulders, and the bullet wound on his opposite shoulder, still pink.

“Are they dead?” He asks quietly, and Diego’s hands are tight on the steering wheel when he looks over.

“Not yet,” he says, “the place was a mess when we got there. Looks like they ran after you got out? Who came for you?” He asks. “We thought that maybe they’d grabbed you and taken you somewhere else, but it didn’t look like that.”

Klaus does laugh, then. He laughs and it hurts his aching ribs, but he doesn’t know what else to do.

“Oh, no,” he says, shakes his head, “no one came. No one got me out,” he says. He flexes his hands over his chest, remembers feeling - something – leave him in a brunt wave and throwing Pink and Blue back. “I got myself out.”

Diego raises his eyebrows and Klaus smiles to himself, turns back to the window and reaches up to his chest and grips Dave’s dog tags. He feels the star of David etched into it as well, and promises he’ll do more research into the religion so he understands more of Dave.

“I can stay at yours for a while,” Diego diverts, “until you get cleaned up and get your medicine again, and it’ll be alright. We’ll get those fuckers, Klaus,” he says, and he knows it’s supposed to be reassuring but Klaus feels his heart skip a beat. He swallows dryly and simply nods, and he falls back against the window and traces Dave’s face in his memory.

 

 

Diego walks behind him up the stairs to his apartment because Klaus’ legs shake, and he unlocks the door with the spare key hidden behind the house number in a crack in the wall. Klaus unties his army boots and sets them aside, feels a little jolt as he steps through his house as if his floor just gave him an electric shock, and Diego turns the TV on and boils the kettle.

Klaus has just ran the hot tap in his bath and was stood, staring at the steam rising from the hot water like smoke from a burning tree when he feels a hand on his shoulder. He startles and finds Diego staring at him, conflicted. They’re quiet for a moment before Diego squeezes his shoulder.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t find you earlier,” he says, shifting awkwardly.

Klaus forces a tight smile. “It’s fine,” he says, claps his hand on his shoulder. “We’re still brothers, right?” He asks, and though he aims it as a joke he begs to hear the answer.

Diego smiles at that and nods. “Yeah, of course. Always. You might want to, ah, add cold water to that before it gets too full,” he comments, and Klaus looks at the bath tub steadily filling up.

“Right,” Klaus nods, lets his hand fall from Diego’s shoulder. “Thanks for getting me. I, ah… I’ll do this and probably just sleep, Diego, so if you’re busy please don’t let me keep you,” he says, and Diego nods, waves a hand.

“No, that’s fair, and hey. As long as you’re okay, Klaus,” he says, raises his eyebrows, and Klaus smiles. His eyes burn.

“I’m fine.”

 

 

He lets Diego out with the promise he’ll rest and take his medicine – Diego even left a cup of tea out next to two pills from his last bottle in the house – and he takes the pills, bottle and all, into the bathroom with him, substituting the tea for the untouched bottle of alcohol in the back of his cupboard he’d never gotten around to drinking. The tub’s full and all of his clothes are discarded on the bathroom floor, and he looks at the little pills in his hand, the bright orange bottle of them. He drops the first two into the toilet and then unscrews the bottle and watches them all tumble out and splash into the toilet. He takes a drink from his bottle of Smirnoff and swallows it down before he can really taste it, and watches the pills flush away.

He settles in his bath, water burning his skin, turning a shade of pink from the blood that washes off of him, and he lazily pours in the last of the bubble mix in it so he doesn’t have to see his own pale, scarred body.

“Tell me everything you know,” he says, tips his head in Ben’s direction and meets Ben’s wary gaze with his own dead eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's short, but like I said, I wanted the next part to be it's own chapter because it'll most likely have a fair amount of important information that, I don't know, I just think it's fitting to have its' own chapter. 
> 
> I hope you liked this part anyway; feel free to leave a kudos or a comment if you did!  
> You can reach me on tumblr @veteranklaus


	8. Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because these two are shorter I'm posting them quicker!  
> Enjoy!  
> Also, just to clarify, yup; flashback from Ben's point of view.

_Despite growing up with six other unique people all his age, Ben has never been extroverted._

_While the others grew close like friends at a boarding school, Ben tended to see them more as siblings rather than friends._

_That’s not to say he isn’t close with them – no, he knows he could trust all of them with his life, and that they trust him with his life – but while Allison and Luther sneak off together to make a secret den and Five and Vanya talk physics, Ben prefers to sit with a book. It’s peaceful and he can easily get absorbed into the stories in front of him, ignore the way it feels like his organs shift, his stomach cramps, the constant chaos going on under his skin._

_So when Ben can get a peaceful distraction, he’ll take it._

_When he was younger – really young – he thinks he might have been closest to Klaus._

_Klaus and him had bonded over their mutual hatred of their powers, and when the others didn’t understand why Klaus always blared music at every possible moment, why Ben hated the idea of Vanya’s meditation, why neither he nor Klaus wanted to join in on their Halloween antics of watching horror movies behind Reginald’s back or reading horror stories and scaring one another, Ben knew he could go to Klaus, and he would understand._

_Ben goes to Klaus more times than Klaus goes to Ben._

_Ben likes comfort, likes talking things out and reassurance. He likes going to Klaus’ room and being able to tell Klaus why he hates their missions, what it’s really like to have another creature – multiple creatures – share a body with him. He likes knowing that Klaus understands the horror of it, and Klaus is, surprisingly, good with words and reassuring him._

_Klaus, on the other hand, does not often seek people out. Or, when he does, he doesn’t make it obvious._

_Klaus seeking out comfort is him coming to antagonise Luther and Diego into a fight for a distraction, is Klaus coming over and insisting that Ben must listen to this song – and hey, the entire album, too – and Klaus likes the music so they might as well just sit together to listen to it. Klaus seeks people out in the way that he raids Allison’s closet so they end up playing dress up and Allison doing Klaus’ makeup, or it’s in the way Klaus forces Five to watch a movie with him and he sits with their thighs touching._

_Klaus doesn’t ask for reassurance and he doesn’t like to talk it out. He likes distractions and physical contact, and Ben is fine with that. He’ll play with Klaus’ hair while they listen to Queen’s last album, and in return Klaus sits with him at night and reminds Ben that he’s more than the monsters under his skin._

_Once, Klaus explains it to him after a gentle prod from Ben._

_He fiddles with frayed strands of Ben’s blanket and heaves a sigh. “They’re... they’re not all normal people,” he says, “they don’t look like you or me. They look like how they died. A lot of them got murdered, because the ones that didn’t don’t stick around here. The ones I see, they… they’re angry, or sad, or scared. They want me to help them, to talk to their family or bring them back to life or send them on, or they want me to die. It’s… they’re always loud. Once they know I can see them, they don’t leave, and they yell over each other and it’s so loud, Ben. There’s some that I only see in training, or at night, and they…” Klaus is pale, a distant look in his eyes and he doesn’t realise one of his hands is clamping over his ear. “They’ve been dead a long time. It’s changed them. They’re so… angry. At everyone. At you, at Vanya, at Pogo, Grace; everyone. But they know I can see them and they hate me, Ben. I can’t get away from those ones. None of them stop. It’s just… just imagine all those demons in that film the others watched last Halloween, yeah? Imagine that. Every day, every night, every hour. Begging you to help them or screaming that they’ll kill you. Sometimes they can touch me, and I think they might kill me, one day. If I can’t control it, anyway. If they get the chance, they will. But I don’t know if I can die, either. I… I don’t know what would be worse. That’s what it’s like, Ben. All the time. It just gets worse and I – I hate it, Ben, I hate it.”_

_In that way, he and Klaus were always the closest. If it wasn’t bonding over their fear of themselves, it was over their training._

_The rest of them could be in the academy during their training, with the occasional exception of Vanya, although she had an entire room built in the basement that was reinforced and designed for her training, although he wasn’t sure of the extent of which that went; she never liked to discuss her training much either._

_Diego could go into the gym and they’d test his limitations with curving objects in motion, or Luther could go outside and see how far up the road he could haul Reginald’s car. Allison would do her training in the way that she learned sign language and would rumour Luther or Five or Vanya into getting her a drink, and she would leave rumour notes around to see if it extended through writing, too. Five furthered his distance in jumps from one corner of the academy to the other and the speed at which he did so._

_Himself and Klaus, however, could not train inside the academy._

_Reginald bought a plot of land an hour away from the academy in some forest and that’s where Ben would train, away from everyone else in case he hurt them, away from prying eyes and ears. The tentacles would tear down trees and they’d keep going to try and see if Ben could control the monsters like they were extensions of his own limbs. He never could._

_Klaus’ training took place in an old cemetery that Reginald bought. Ben only knows that because it was in the newspaper that Reginald Hargreeves, eccentric millionaire, bought the oldest cemetery still standing in the city, and not because Klaus ever spoke about it. He never did._

_So, while Ben truly loved and trusted each of his siblings, he and Klaus would always understand one another more than the others could, because they simply could not comprehend having powers that they could not control or ever stop. Ben would always feel monsters underneath his skin, would always fight for them to do what he wanted, and that was always a 50/50 scenario. Klaus could never stop seeing or hearing the dead, and he could never control what they wanted or what they did when they turned corporeal._

_Although it’s an unspoken understanding between them that they never talk about their training, it’s not uncommon to seek one another out after returning from a session. It’s evident in the way Ben is covered in dirt and splatters of blood that may or may not be his and the way he coughs blood for a while, and evident in the way that Klaus clamps his hands over his ears and looks at the floor, has scratches on his pale skin, and his voice is hoarse when he sings irritatingly peppy songs._

_He remembers one time that Klaus didn’t come to his after training._

_He’d hear their car return and Klaus had come in, hands over his ears like usual, and he had ran to his room as if there were demons on his heels and he’d slammed the door and locked it. In the brief glimpse Ben got of him, he thought he saw his arms, his neck, his face covered in scratches, and thought he saw flashes of people following after him, but he thought it was just a trick of the light._

_He doesn’t come to dinner that night and Reginald is in a grimly good mood despite Four’s absence. Ben tries to ask if they should wait for him to come down before eating._

_“Number Four won’t be joining us today. He wishes to eat alone tonight, and I am granting him that. Now, no more talking at the table, Number Six.”_

_It’s not a good enough answer for him, but there is really nothing Ben can do until they’re excused from dinner. When he tries to go into his room something smashes on the wall against his head and Klaus screams at him to leave him alone. He obliges, but he sits outside for ten minutes. His room was soundproofed ages ago but he can hear him faintly by the door still, muttering words too fast for him to catch between sobs._

_After that, Klaus’ training extends to dinner times. It’s painful for them all to watch, and Ben thinks that a part of the reason why Reginald makes Klaus do this with them at dinner time is to warn them._

_It seems that in their last session, Klaus progressed with a new power; telekinesis. And to train this after Klaus resists, they sit down at dinner and Reginald uses a sturdy rope to hold Klaus’ wrists to the arms of his chairs, and he can eat and drink if he can bring the food or water to him with telekinesis._

_It hardly ever works. Ben thinks he sees the plate or cutlery or glass shake, lift an inch or fall over, but it never makes it to his mouth and Klaus stays there for hours after they’ve been excused. None of them rat out Grace when she walks in whenever Reginald leaves him like that and holds the glass to his mouth for him and reheats his food, feeds him each forkful of it, and tells Reginald that it worked._

_Klaus begins to get more reserved around that time, and coincidentally Reginald begins to take more of an interest in Klaus and his powers. They’re gone for longer periods of time and Ben notices that sometimes Klaus and Reginald leaves for training and Reginald comes back by himself and leaves early in the morning. Klaus both isolates himself more and acts out more; says and does more controversial things. Luther seems completely done with Klaus after a few months, and they hardly talk to one another before they start arguing._

_Ben also notices that it’s around this time that Diego joins in on his subtle check ins with Klaus._

_They never voice it but they catch each-others gaze a few times when walking out or past Klaus’ room and they understand one another._

_Ben remembers the last day of it all._

_They’re ten years old, and it’s been a tense handful of months. Some people had been making progress in their training and some hadn’t. Reginald seemed more harsh on them; if one progressed, then they all should. He wants to keep them at the same stage, he says, but it’s impossible. He hears Five argue with him some times, complains that he wants to do more, but nothing comes of it for three years._

_Something Ben notices is his interest in Klaus’ abilities. He thinks he’s making progress, hence why he’s so fixated on Klaus at the moment, but he isn’t sure_

_He’s sure Reginald has hounded him about it, his ability to conjure or resurrect the dead, if he can actually do that. He’s been pushing them all harder lately, and it’s kept them all tense and tired and distant._

_Reginald and Klaus left two days ago, and they’ve since had more freedom around the house._

_Pogo makes sure they do what training they can without Reginald’s supervision, which means Ben gets out of training altogether for those two days. They watch movies and stay up late and Ben finishes Lois Lowry’s ‘The Giver’. Grace makes them popcorn and brownies and it’s eerily good. Ben doesn’t mention the dread building in his guts, and neither does anyone else. Diego is extra fidgety and Vanya plays her violin in a choppy, sharp song._

_They’re eating dinner when the doors are thrown open and instantly all of the siblings stand to their feet. Reginald’s voice is hoarse as he calls for Grace, who’s eyes flash blue as she hurries out towards their father who’s hand trembles above his chest and he uses the wall to steady himself._

_He’s whisked away before anyone can question it and Pogo tells them to sit back down, but they don’t. They glance outside of the dining room and through the open doors to where Reginald’s car is. In the backseat Klaus has tears running down his face and Ben fears he’s going to smash the car window with how much he’s hitting it._

_Nothing changes within an hour except the fact their dinner grows cold and Pogo disappears once to talk to Reginald, and when he returns he looks grim. He lets Klaus out of the car and from the dining room Ben can hear his brother’s sobs, his pleads and his apologies, hears fear underlay every word, and he clings to Pogo like an anchor. Pogo looks terribly conflicted when he hugs Klaus back; shame and guilt in the way he moves, anger and conflict in his eyes._

_He calls for Allison._

_He catches word of their brief conversation; says that both Klaus and Allison are wanted to talk to their father, and they disappear up the stairs Reginald had._

_Another tense hour passes, and Allison returns. She has tear tracks on her face and she takes each of them aside to explain what happens._

_Ben’s turn is last. He’s gone back to trying to distract himself in some random book he took off the shelf in the library when he hears her walk up to him. She’s still sad, hands fiddling in front of her, and Ben gives her his attention._

_“I heard a rumour,” she says in a wobbly voice, “that you think Klaus is just ordinary. He always has been.”_

_The fact that Klaus has to take pills every morning is normal. He has always had to since they were young. If he doesn’t, Klaus hallucinates and loses his touch with reality. They’re all on strict orders to watch him if he doesn’t take them, and Ben thinks that’s normal. He needs to take them, because he always has._

_They don’t know why Klaus isn’t special like them, but there’s nothing they can do to help that so they simply focus on their own training. Reginald never liked it when they spoke about powers to Klaus, anyway, or when Klaus spoke to them. It was easier to just avoid him and avoid any possible punishments it brought either of them, anyway._

_Sometimes something doesn't feel right, but Ben never knows what it is, and Reginald is always harsher on them if they're curious. They just accept the fact that there's nothing special about Number Four and focus on their own training._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed it! It's relatively short but I hope you enjoyed the little shake up of style/point of view, and some insight into someone else's point of view of Klaus, too.


	9. Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's another short chapter, but you get to find out what happened to Reginald and Klaus!
> 
> The next one's gonna be a long and most likely angst one, so, uh, enjoy?
> 
> Also, I just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone that's read, that's left a kudos or a comment or even bookmarked it; thank you all so much for the amazing support I've received for this!

Alcohol had spilled across the bathroom floor and Klaus splutters for air as cold hands pull him out of water.

“Klaus? Klaus, are you okay?” Ben asks, his eyes searching Klaus as he finishes coughing.

Klaus ran his hands down his face, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hands, and his shoulders shake. He screws his eyes closed tightly and he bites his lip until that won’t hold back his laughter.

“Yeah, yeah,” he grins, waves faded red fingers in Ben’s direction, “I’m great. Great! Imagine that...” He laughs, and he drags himself over the rim of the tub to reach for the Smirnoff he let fall from his grasp and he brings it to his lips, feels some fall past his lips and down his chin when he barely restrained a laugh as he drank.

He could remember, vaguely. He could remember flashes of training when he was young, flashes of discussing it with Ben, of struggling to eat dinner because he simply couldn’t bring it to himself in the way Reginald wanted. As he got older, his memories got worse. A clash of remembering how he used to yell at Reginald during training and the gut instinct of no, that wasn’t right because Klaus was normal. He always had been.

“I remember it,” Klaus whispers. His lips are stretched wide in a quivering grin and he nods. "I remember," he repeats, because he does.

He remembers rope on his wrists and a plate of untouched food in front of him, can remember sitting in graveyards with Reginald over his shoulder, can remember thumping his fists against the car window and screaming, can remember clinging onto Pogo and messily sobbing words like he didn't mean to, he's sorry, he didn't know he could do that, it was an accident. Remembers Pogo hugging him back and thinking everything was going to be okay. Remembers waiting outside as Reginald spoke to Allison, remembers the way she messed with her shirt and whispered "I heard a rumour..."

He remembers everything like a foggy memory.

He uses the edge of the porcelain tub to support himself as he stands on tired legs and steps out, water dripping into a puddle beneath him as he reaches for a towel to dry himself off and tie around his hips.

"How much?" Ben asks, hesitant, and Klaus shrugs.

"Some. Enough. Not enough," he corrects himself, almost slips in some spilled water as he makes his way to his bedroom. Ben follows behind him, quiet and curious.

"Are you okay?" He asks, and Klaus rakes through the clothes in his wardrobe with a thoughtful look.

"Oh, yeah," Klaus says with a sigh, "I'm fine. I'm perfectly fine. I... I'm gonna go back to the academy, and we're going to find my files. And then... well, after that, I'm not sure. Maybe we'll die, who knows - well, _you_ won't die, because, you know," he laughs, sharp and cold, and he goes back to looking in his wardrobe. He pulls out a button-down shirt; it's rainbow stripes, and slightly too big. He leaves it unbuttoned because it's hot outside and his fingers are shaking too much for him to actually do the buttons. He throws on the pair of leather pants he has, the knees and the sides braided, and he decides he looks good enough and throws on his long, fluffy brown coat that dusts just above his knees. Plus, the pocket is big enough on the inside to put his vodka in.

He stumbles his way to the taxi he called and falls gracefully into the backseat. He closes the door after Ben joins him at mutters the address to the driver and ignores him when he says he can’t drink in his car.

It’s all bubbling under his skin and he can feel it. He can feel the way his lungs stutter, bounce between manic laughter and sobs, and he’s barely containing it all under the surface by telling himself it’s _fine._ It’s not such a big deal. He’s spent the majority of his life believing he has a crippling illness, taking daily medication that makes him vomit and faint, and being excluded from his family, but it’s _fine_. He’ll break back into Reginald’s office, find his files, and talk to everyone? And they’ll say they’re so sorry, or that they had no idea, and they’ll help him learn how to control himself and the decaying corpses that follow him around and they’ll be a happy family.

Klaus knows that’s not going to happen, but he tells himself it anyway.

When the driver stops outside of the grand academy Klaus throws some money out of his pocket at him and climbs out of the taxi. He hears his name whispered on the wind of corpses’ breaths, echoing in his skull and getting louder. He hears blood catch in their throat and bubble past their lips, sees red stain the stairs beneath his feet and he doesn’t even realise how he’s already going upstairs in the academy.

He hums under his breath, _Build Me Up Buttercup_ that Dave used to hum and sing at night, runs his hands along the wall as he walks. He thinks Ben might have said something but he isn’t sure and focuses on listening for Pogo.

The office is still unlocked from Blue and Pink’s invasion, luck for him, and he wanders inside and closes the door softly behind Ben.

“Can you touch things?” He asks, and Ben tries to do so by reaching for an ornament beside him. His hand fazes through it once, twice, and Klaus feels irritation flood through him. He glares at the stubborn ornament until it falls over from Ben’s touch and they both startle when it works. Ben gives a breathy laugh and lifts it up, turns it over in his grasp, and Klaus can see little blue wisps of smoke drift from his fingers, and they share a grin.

“Help me look, yeah, Ben?” He asks, softens his gaze and his tone. “We’ll find my files and read them and then…”

“Talk to them,” Ben says, and he seems firm in that idea that he needs to discuss this. If it’ll make him help, he’ll do it, so Klaus nods and smiles.

“Yeah, yeah. We’ll talk to them,” he promises. If Ben doesn’t like the way his eyes don’t really settle for long or focus on him, he doesn’t say anything.

 

 

There are plenty of files in Reginald’s office.

He finds more than enough on all of his siblings, neatly stacked and ordered and all easy to find. He flicks through them, skims over them but he doesn’t really care what they have to say because they never mention him.

Ben searches through drawers and sometimes they have to pause for a moment and focus because his hands go through things, and Klaus thinks that the alcohol might not be helping with that but it helps him ignore the whispers on the edge of his consciousness.

“Seen a key for this?” Ben asks, holding up a fancy box. Klaus takes it from him and rattles it by his ear, hears something big and heavy bounce in it.

He digs into the first drawer of his old oak desk and sees way too many loose keys. Klaus settles on the ground and Ben, curious, sits next to him and watches Klaus try each key in its lock.

Klaus is tired of trying keys and is pretty ready to just leave the box and move on when one finally slides in and turns, and he shares a look with Ben.

“If this isn’t it,” he mutters jokingly and flips the lid over.

There’s a red book inside, R.H engraved in gold on the front, and Klaus pulls it out and flicks onto the first page. He’s expecting birth records, perhaps, and so he startles when the first page instead reads; _NUMBER 00.04; THE SÉANCE._

Klaus looks up at Ben, feels his lips quiver and he diverts it to a laugh quickly. He feels light headed and he begins to read and he thinks he might vomit. Page after page after page reads of Klaus, Number Four, and his progress – or lack thereof – with communication with ‘the non-living’. His resistance to Reginald. His nightmares. Descriptions of the ghosts Klaus had described to him. Underneath the book in the box is some stray papers and Klaus recognises them all; the drawings he’d torn from his sketch book, off his walls, rough pencil sketches of screaming mouths and bleeding eyes and hanging corpses that reach out for him.

He talks about his telekinesis, how they’d found it out when he’d brought Klaus to an old church and he’d manage to shatter the stained glass windows while being at the opposite end of it.

He talks about the time Klaus first manage to physically manifest a ghost, a little girl who hung around the academy and was suffocated to death by her father. He talks about watching the air glitch and blue forms materialise and watch as Klaus was lifted off his feet by blue skeletal hands around his throat.

He talks about a mission they went out on and how he’d kept Klaus in the mausoleum for the day before, kept him on edge on purpose, and watched as Klaus’ eyes flickered blue and the gunman holding the aeroplane hostage aged rapidly, bones broke and deteriorated, organs aged and died and flesh decayed as the life left him.

The last entry is of his last training session. He took him to the oldest mausoleum in the city, one he used for their extreme sessions because Klaus always came out with scratches and bruises and no voice for days.

_He’s terrified. His clothes are torn and he thinks he might have passed out for a brief few moments earlier. They wail and scream in his ears and nails dig into the skin around his eyes and threaten to go in closer, teeth latch onto his wrists, claws pull his hair, and he wants out. He shattered all of the windows an hour into it in an accidental burst of blue, and then he’d seen the ghosts of the graves outside the mausoleum haul themselves out of their graves and come, moaning, to the barred windows and reach in, dripping blood or water or dropping body parts and begging Klaus to do something for them._

_All the while Reginald stands outside one window, composed. The only time his hands aren’t clasped behind his back is when he’s writing in that stupid red book of his, demanding Klaus tell him what he feels, what they’re saying, who they are. Demanding Klaus get a hold of himself right now. Each time he screams is a half hour added onto his stay in there._

_He gets desperate. His voice goes after the eighth hour and hands close around his broken throat and bones dig to expose his veins, and he thinks he dies. For what feels like a too-short instance there’s blissful nothingness, and then he wakes up on the cold, dirty mausoleum floor with blood running down his mouth and his nose and he watches all of their deaths replay in his mind._

_He begs. He clings onto the bars and tries to appeal to Reginald’s sympathy because he must have some, surely, but he does nothing other than step back out of his reach and write in his book._

_Klaus screams in anguish and utter hatred for the man in front of him, wishes the ghosts would go for the real monster outside, and he imagines, not for the first time, Reginald’s neck snapping under the pressure of blue energy, imagines Reginald trying to run from the ghosts that he forced upon Klaus, imagines seeing his cheeks sink in and his skin melt off his skeleton as he dies from Klaus’ fingertips. He never does it, though. He isn’t sure if he can._

_He doesn’t kill Reginald, but something happens. He watches from outside the bars as his body crumples and there’s no ghosts around him; himself or the him on the floor of the mausoleum, not breathing and not moving. When he looks down his hands are wrinkled with age and grasp a red book and a pen. He sees himself move and sit up, look around wildly, and sees himself open his mouth –_

_He’s back in the mausoleum with a scream tearing his bleeding throat and outside, Reginald collapses._

Ben doesn’t say anything while Klaus reads, even when he starts laughing, starts sobbing and twitches on the floor until he’s still and eerily silent, eyes far off and still crying. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked it, please leave a kudos or a comment, I appreciate them all! Thank you!


	10. Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I know I said this part was going to be long, and it was! But rereading it I actually split it into two chapters because I preferred this as a short one by itself, so I hope you don't mind!

Klaus remembers the times he refused to take his ‘medication’. He could hear his siblings downstairs, training or playing or doing whatever while a corpse raked its hands down Klaus back and begged “ _please, Klaus… make it stop…”_

He can remember going up to Five and insisting they watch _Star Wars_ together because he looked like he could easily fit into the universe. Five entertained him and Klaus assumed Five knew what he was doing, the fact that he wanted a distraction from the dead.

He remembers it all, and it feels surreal. Like a terrible dream.

He clutches the red book to his chest and coughs when his lungs can’t handle the laughing and sobs, and he can’t breathe, feels the dusty air of the mausoleum, ash filled air from Vietnam in his lungs and throat, and tries to pull himself up into a sitting position although it doesn’t really work.

He feels cold hands on his back, gently helping him up, and he looks at Ben through narrowed eyes. He looks conflicted and apologetic and Klaus wonders how he’s still stuck to him in the desperate hope Klaus would be off Reginald’s pills long enough to entertain him. How long he’s ignored him for.

He falls forward and he fears he’ll fall right through Ben, but he thuds against his chest and he can twist his fingers into his hoodie and feel Ben’s hands on his back.

“It’s alright, Klaus,” he says, and Klaus laughs because it’s not. He’s killed people, has conjured dead people, and was led to believe he was just hallucinating, convinced to supress his own powers.

He isn’t sure how long he sobs over Ben’s shoulder, but Ben doesn’t complain or rush him. He supports him until he can breathe again and then he helps him get back to his feet.

“I think we should go home,” Klaus utters, and Ben has a gentle but firm grip on his forearm but says nothing.

He doesn’t want to see siblings at the moment but at the same time he does. He wants his family to be normal for once and to help him.

Klaus clutches the book to his chest and trudges out of the mess that is Reginald’s office. As he makes his way back downstairs, clutching the bannister with one hand, he can make out Luther’s voice.

He isn’t necessarily Klaus’ first option, but Klaus is the one to talk to people who aren’t there so he assumes someone else must be there, too, and it’s a good enough start. He wanders over and sees Ben nod encouragingly, and then he pushes the doors to the living room open.

Everyone’s gathered by the bar in the far end of the living room, clutching coffee and talking over one another. They don’t hear his arrival except for Vanya who freezes as if Klaus just caught them doing something they shouldn’t be.

“Guys,” he says, and his voice is quiet and quavers.

Everyone stills and turns around to Klaus, clothes and hair a mess, pale and crying, and he takes a tentative step forwards.

“What’s… what’s going on, here?” He asks, looks over them all. “I… I need to talk to you all,” he says, and they all exchange glances.

“It’s, uh… it’s a family thing, Klaus,” Luther says, and Klaus digs his fingers into the book on his chest.

“And I am your brother,” he says. He takes a step forwards but his foot _slips because the paths up the ‘Mountain of the Crouching Beast’ have been worn away by the hundreds of soldiers before them, some ditches from shells that had destroyed the ground and greenery around, had flooded with monsoon rain water and they’ve been walking for hours on high alert and he’s exhausted. He catches himself on Dave’s shoulder –_

On the arm of the sofa before he can fall over it, and he feels Ben’s hand on his back, steadying and calming.

“Where are your shoes, Klaus?” Vanya asks him, and he looks down to his pale feet – there are still pink scars stretching out from his soles, curtesy of Pink’s beloved lighter – and he laughs. He hadn’t even noticed.

“Forgot,” he admits with a laugh.

“You’re drunk,” Luther states, sounding unjustly disgusted in him. Klaus points a finger at him and laughs, nodding his head.

“Yeah,” he confirms, “I am. So what? Am I suddenly, what, disowned? Was that in ol’ Reggie’s will? Now _that_ wouldn’t surprise me,” he shrugs, but his shoulders are tense and his voice shakes. Beside him Ben’s hand falls through him in a blue mist and he whispers _“calm down, Klaus, breathe.”_

“Shut up, Ben, I’m _fine_ ,” he snaps, heaves in air and Ben takes a step aside.

“I knew I shouldn’t have left,” Diego mutters, gets up and shushes Luther with a wave of his hand. “Come on, Klaus, you need rest. Have you taken your medicine?” He asks, and his voice is gentle but when he comes closer Klaus watches him change from his brother to a blue apparition, soaking wet, and when it talks water drips past his lips from its drowned lungs and it moans _“Klaus, please, Klaus, God save us.”_

Diego, the corpse, reaches out to him and Klaus flinches, holds the book up to shield his face and his sight from the ghastly corpse. “Don’t,” he whispers, and he’s thankful that nothing touches him. When he peers back over the red book he’s still clutching, Diego has his hands raised in a non-threatening gesture and he looks sad.

“Lets go sit down, Klaus, we’ll make some tea,” he offers, and Klaus takes a step back and shakes his head.

“I could – I could deal with it before, y’know,” he says, lets his eyes bounce from sibling to sibling, “all the other family meetings minus me, all the family decisions minus me, everything minus me, but now you – you say it so – so – like it’s nothing! Have I ever been your brother, Number One?” He asks, seething, but shakes his head. “Once, maybe. Years ago, before this, all this,” he mutters, and when Luther stands up and begins to walk over he looks… sad, reserved. Klaus takes a step back each time Luther takes one forwards until he realises he’s walking himself back out the living room and he stands his ground.

“Klaus, please,” he sighs, and Klaus grounds his teeth. Hears Reginald in his ear saying _three more hours, Number Four_ and locking him back in with corpses that try and tear him apart, sees the same uncaring gaze from Reginald reflected in Luther’s eyes burning into him.

“We haven’t got time for this,” he says, and Klaus balls his free hand into a fist.

“You never do!” He says, and the way Ben can also hear the little girl crying _papa, papa that hurts!_ tells him that he needs to calm himself down.

“I don’t need to talk to you, then. You can – can… I don’t know, go worship dad, and I’ll talk to the others.” He goes to walk around him but his large hand settles on Klaus’ shoulder. When he looks back _Blue stares at him from behind his mask and taps his cheek, and then he nods to Pink. “He’s still with us,” he reports, and he can imagine Pink’s twisted smile behind her mask. “Might want to make sure,” she says, and Blue nods. He cranks his fist back and_

Klaus stumbles backwards from the non-existent hit, and he looks at Luther’s arm blocking him.

“Let me go,” he says, quiet, and Luther simply doesn’t reply.

“Luther, come on,” Diego mutters, and Klaus hugs the book to his chest tighter. Someone screams in his ear and _Reginald takes his untouched plate of food away and unties him, leaves his stomach empty for the third day because if he can’t get it with his powers, then he can’t get it, period._

“Have you ever even noticed me before?” Klaus questions. “Have you ever actually been worried for me? Thought to check in with me? Thought about me at all? Let me guess, let me guess; nope.” Klaus laughs, shakes his head. He shouldn’t have to have a power to be part of their fucked up family, anyway. He shouldn’t need to prove himself for them to care about him. He shouldn’t have to, and no one else has to except for him, and even then it doesn’t matter because they don’t care. They never have and they never will and Klaus understands that, now.

He thumps his fist down onto Luther’s chest and a high-pitched sound falls out of his tight throat, and he hits him again, and again, and Luther takes it without a flinch.

“I am still your brother!” He cries. “I am still your brother! Listen to me!” His fist hits Luther’s chest once more and it flickers blue, and Klaus tries to stop it but he doesn’t know how and he falls onto his back and hears a crash at the other end of the room where Luther lands.

He hears chairs scrape as people rush over, blue ghosts running to tear him apart and put him together to redo it for eternity, and Klaus scrambles backwards along the floor. He feels a hand rest on his shoulder and hears Diego asking if he’s okay, muttering curses and all Klaus can do is let apologies spill over his lips like he had when he was ten. He sees Reginald walk up to him, nine years old and standing in the middle of shattered stained glass with blue glowing hands, and he hears his voice rasp in the way it had when he had finally woken up that night outside the mausoleum and told Klaus to get in the car.

Klaus wrenches himself out of Diego’s grip, bare feet scrambling to catch him, and he drops the book, drops his gun, behind him somewhere on the academy floor, in the overgrown forest of Vietnam, and he runs away from his siblings. Ghosts flood after him, cackling and screaming and wailing and scratching at his face and his legs and his arms, and shells shatter the earth behind him napalm lights up the forest and when the soldiers start to scream with the ghosts, Klaus joins in, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, super sorry it's shorter, but I hope you liked it nonetheless!


	11. Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO sorry for the monstrous wait for this last chapter. I got ill the following week of the last one and then caught up with life since, but I am so happy to say; here it is! At just over eight thousand words, I hope you enjoy, and thank you so much for being so patient with me!

The house is in shock.

It took several prolonged moments after Luther was sent flying to the other end of the room before anyone actually did anything, trying to process what just happened.

Allison had rushed forwards to Luther, winded and trying not to smash any more of the ornaments in the display cabinet that he'd crashed into. Vanya had stepped forwards, swaying awkwardly with her lips parted, and Diego had gone to Klaus when he saw he didn't immediately get back up. Klaus' eyes are unfocused and staring at the place Luther had stood moments prior, his lips silently moving. He doesn't react when Diego sets a hand on his shoulder, either, or when he tries to talk to him. When Diego glances down at his hands, he only catches a glimpse of fading blue before it disappears like little wisps. He's not sure what to do and it's still processing through his head what just happened, and all he can do is mutter  _"what the fuck, what the fuck."_

He hears the crunch of glass as Luther tries to pull himself out of the mess in the back of the room, and Klaus makes some strangled noise and pulls himself out of Diego's grasp. He scrambles to his feet and makes a mad dash towards the exit, and Diego follows him to the doorway, calling after him. He hesitates in the doorway, lingering, and watches where Klaus had ran out, hands clasped over his ears. Eventually, though, triggered by the sound of a grunt and a smash, Diego turns back to his siblings. 

He's gotten out from under the glass display cabinet and sits back against the wall with a grimace and Diego watches his hand swipe away a trickle of blood from a cut on his cheek. 

 

 

Vanya is the first to bring it up.

They focus on helping Luther first; cleaning him up and getting him to sit on the couch. He dismisses Allison when she tells him they should go get Grace because he still seems dazed and hit his head, and Diego sweeps the glass shards into a pile in the corner and can't help but notice the crack running up the wall from the force with which Luther hit it. 

They boil the kettle and Allison makes tea and Vanya stands by the side, reading from a book. Diego notices it's the red one that Klaus had held to his chest in a desperate, white-knuckled grip. Vanya's lips move slightly while she reads and she looks the same was as she does whenever Diego throws a knife at one of them. 

"Are we just not going to talk about it?" Diego snaps. "Klaus, our brother who weighs about the same as Vanya and used to paint his nails with you," he looks at Allison, "just threw your ass across the room hard enough to crack the wall. And not to mention, he was fucking  _glowing."_

"I don't know what that was," Allison says, her eyes still wide, and Vanya clears her throat.

"I think I do," she says, quiet, and she pulls up that book again. 

"That's dads," Luther notices, R.H engraved in the front.

"Klaus had it," Diego informs with the tip of his head. "And hey, what's _that_ supposed to mean, huh?"

"I think... you really need to hear this," she says, flicking back to the first page.

 

 

_"Upon Number Four's resistance and the destructive growth within his powers, I've made the choice to separate all of his previous files. If he proves to be a further nuisance with his powers, further action to protect the academy will be taken._

_He showcased his telekinesis once more last night, blowing the windows of the cathedral out. An attempt to get out possibly? Uncertain. He refuses to try and hone it anymore after that incident. Returning to the previous training methods at meal times of restraining his hands._

 

 _Number Four and Number Six seem to be bonding. Neither like their powers and both show resistance to their training. Number Four seems like a bad influence on the others. Continues to impede their training._   _Punishment only brings further resistance. More trouble than he's worth._

_Cannot be trusted on missions._

_A distraction to the others_.

_Interferes with the others training and progress._

_Doesn't follow house rules._

_Broke into liquor cabinet._

_Refuses to cooperate in training._

_Powers becoming more unstable and unpredictable. Extra safety precautions needed. More training and punishments to be given._

_Time in mausoleum extended._

_Bars added over mausoleum windows._

_Seemed to be trying to find a new power? Squeezing through and trying to bend bars,_

_Destroys his walls with writing._

_Physically manifested ghosts._

_Possibly became possessed 3/5/1997._

_Stole painkillers. Uninjured._

_Bothers other children._

_Refuses to go on missions."_

 

Vanya only reads snippets off pages, but it's enough. It's enough for them to feel sick with horror and guilt. When Vanya stops reading no one else goes to speak up, and all Diego can do is stare at their sister with the book.

"That can't be true," Luther says after several moments of silence, but his voice is quiet and hesitant, not confident in that idea.

"No. I can assure you that it is quite correct."

At the sound of Pogo's voice, calm and controlled, the siblings turn to quickly look to him as he wanders in calmly, his cane tap, tap, tapping on the floor. 

"What do you mean by that?" Luther presses. Pogo doesn't speak up immediately but heads over to Vanya and gestures for the book, which she hands over. Pogo's fingers slide over the cover and he lets out a sigh, minutely shaking his head.

"It was only a matter of time before he found out," he mutters to himself. He turns back around to look over everyone. "Master Klaus grew up beside all of you with the ability to... interact with the dead as well as telekinesis," he says. "Master Hargreeves took an avid interest in his abilities, however Klaus was always resistant. He struggled with his powers and he did not like them, but he showed... incredible possibilities. He was too scared to use his powers and he never learned how to fully control them. They were... rather unpredictable. He became a danger to himself and others and Master Hargreeves had to step in before he could hurt others. Unfortunately, this resulted in suppressing his powers and erasing all memories of him having any."

His voice echoes in the quiet room and he looks guilty and ashamed, and Diego can only think  _good._ He tries to imagine it by putting himself in Klaus' situation and he can understand Klaus' reaction and his odd behaviour lately. But, one thing Diego doesn't understand...

"How?" He asks, hands clenched into fists by his side. "How could he do that? Make us forget all of that?" He asks, and Pogo's eyes flick to Allison. Allison, who's teary eyed and her face burns dark red. Diego feels something in him fall and he scoffs, stalks forwards.

"You... bitch," he says. "How old were we?" He asks, ignores how Luther hauls himself to his feet to put himself between Diego and Allison. 

"I - I didn't have a choice," Allison defends, and Diego shakes his head.

"How old?" He repeats, ignores Vanya stepping close and telling him to calm down.

Allison toys with her lip. "Ten... we were ten," she whispers, and Diego snorts. He steps back and runs a hand through his hair. 

"You always have a choice," he spits, words bitter and cold.

"Master Hargreeves was adamant in his choice to use Allison in that way," Pogo defends. "And I know he was adamant about keeping it that way since. Allison has not had a choice in this, Diego," he tells him, voice sad, and Diego takes in a slow breath and sighs.

"Well," he says, "he's dead now. We should be out there trying to find him and help him!" 

"What do you mean dangerous?" Luther asks, and Diego feels like he just got whiplash.

"You can't be serious - it's Klaus! Klaus who broke his jaw running in Grace's heels!" He turns to look up at Luther, a challenge in his eyes, but Luther's always been good at talking over his siblings, and he simply ignores Diego in favour of Pogo.

"The last straw for Master Hargreeves was during his training," Pogo begins. "Klaus managed to possess Master Hargreeves. The incident was harmful to them both."

"So what do we do?" Luther asks, and Diego turns and checks over his shoe laces. He taps each of his knives to assure himself that they're all there, and he debates on leaving them. Then, he heads towards the door.

"Diego? Where are you going?" He asks, and Diego scoffs.

"I'm going to find our brother," he states. He turns to look at them, raising his eyebrow. No one moves and he thinks that's for the better. Diego doesn't want Luther near Klaus right now and he doesn't want Allison near himself right now. He glances at Vanya and they look at one another without saying anything.

"I'll come with you," she says, and Diego just nods. They head towards the doors but before they can leave, there's a bright flash - Diego briefly thinks it's Klaus again - and a crash. Everyone whips around, tense, only to see Five clambering off the bar he just crashed into, clutching a briefcase. He looks a mess, chest heaving with exertion and hair a mess. He doesn't even acknowledge any of them, immediately reaching for some of the liquor, letting out a long sigh.

The tension gets to him eventually, and with a bottle in his hand, Five turns around to study them all with a questioning expression.

"Are... you okay?" Vanya asks hesitantly.

"Where have you been?" Luther asks at the same time. The man finally gets to his feet, one hand holding his shoulder with a grimace, and everyone makes their way over; Diego stalking over also.

Five waves a hand. "Does it matter?" He asks, bitterness in his voice though it dies quickly. He looks at the bottle in his hand, studying the label, and then he cracks the lid off and reaches for a glass to pour some into it and he takes an experimental sip of it. He seems satisfied and slumps into one of the bar stools. "Did I walk into something here?" He asks, and then his eyes flick to the mess in the back of the room. "Fight again?" His eyes bounce between Diego and Luther.

Diego's nostrils flare and he steps back again. "You missed a lot," Luther tells him, and Diego refrains from jumping in. 

"Oh, good," Five mutters sarcastically, shaking his head and pouring more of whatever he took from the bar into his glass. Diego thinks one of them should talk about Five's drinking issues, but now probably isn't the best time.

"Well, I'll leave you all to it," he says, sliding off the bar stool and he walks towards the door rather than just teleporting. It's weird, Diego realises, to see Five so... relaxed when he'd been tense and rushed for the past near-week. 

"Nuh-uh," Diego says, reaching out to catch his shoulder. "This was a family meeting. You missed the good part of Klaus throwing Luther across the room," he says, and that catches Five's attention.

He looks up, eyebrows raised and then drawing together. "And what does that mean? Have you seen Klaus?" He asks with a snort. 

Diego gives him a pointed look. "Exactly. And now he's run off and no one else seems to be all that worried about him. Read that book, or whatever. Me and Vanya are going to find Klaus," he says, and he gestures for Vanya to follow after him as he heads back towards the door.

"We have bigger problems than Klaus being upset," Five says, leaning against the counter. "Like, you know, the end of the world! Or has everyone just forgotten about that?" He asks rhetorically, shaking his head. 

"Do you just not care about him?" Diego asks, narrowed eyes piercing Five.

"That's not what I'm saying!" Five defends, and he stalks forwards. "Don't you dare tell me I don't care about my family, Diego. I had to bury you all, and I'm the only one who seems interested in not letting that happen again!" He yells that, pointing an accusatory finger at Diego while his shoulders shake with anger. Diego doesn't think he's seen Five so - angry? Desperate? - before. For a moment, he feels guilt rise in his chest and he glances away.

"Guys," Allison speaks up, but Five's already walking away and to the door. He pauses a few feet away, head tilted and looking at the floor. Diego thinks he's legitimately hurt him when he says,

"What's that?"

Everyone turns to follow his gaze. Near his feet rests a, what? Necklace? Five bends down to pick them up and Diego watches the dog tags swing.

"They're Klaus'," Vanya offers. She had noticed them on him earlier.

"They're what?" Five asks, his voice dangerously low as he closes his fist around the rope and looks at the dog tags.

"Klaus was wearing them," she repeats with a shrug. Five stares at her, eyes cold, and she remembers when Five had appeared in her bedroom and pulled out a replica pair of dog tags and told her that was all he had from the apocalypse. Her lips part slightly and Five looks at everyone.

"Find Klaus," he snaps, "we need to find him now."

He doesn't need to be told twice, already heading outside, and Diego hears Vanya's hurried footsteps as she reaches his side, and Diego doesn't look back as they continue outside.

He has no idea where he's going to find Klaus, but he will.

 

 

 

 

The streets are cold and damp and Klaus isn't sure where he is, honestly. He thinks he's taken a wrong turn somewhere because the streets all smell like cigarette smoke and weed and it doesn't really matter. He doesn't care where he is as long as it isn't the academy.

He staggers inside an alley. He needs to catch his breath, needs to remember _how_ to breathe, and his feet ache horrendously. The cons of sprinting down filthy city streets bare foot.

He slumps against the dirty wall of a building, right beside a large dumpster, and his trembling hands reach up to his head, shaking fingers curling into his hair. Repeatedly he runs his hands from the back of his head forwards and then back, tugging lightly on his short hair as if expecting it to help ground him.

He still isn't entirely sure where he is. Whether he's in some stingy alleyway in a city or if he's behind a club in Vietnam, whether there's flashes of his erased childhood flashing on the back of his eyelids or if there's bombs shaking the ground beneath him. He does know, however, that Ben is still with him. He can see his legs a couple of feet away, can see him as he crouches down beside him and reaches out. Klaus wonders how much Ben has been trying to reach him since his death, how long he's had to endure sticking around and knowing the truth and being unable to do anything. Klaus feels guilt bubble in his chest and he reaches out, grabs his arm - actually grabs it - and pulls him close. 

"I'm - I'm sorry Ben," he gasps. He can remember the way Ben's death completely flipped the academy, how it had ruined each of them. The funeral had been awful. The weeks following it had been horrific. Even now, Klaus doesn't think anyone ever entirely got over his death. But here he is, and Klaus can actually talk to him, see him, touch him. Klaus pulls his brother close and he thuds against him, solid, and Klaus' fingers fist into his leather jacket. Ben's hands hover over his back, hesitant, before returning the hug.

"Hey, Klaus... it's alright, Klaus. But you need to get up, come on." He urges Klaus slowly to his feet, using his new-found solidness to balance him. He keeps a hand on Klaus' shaking shoulder, and Klaus keeps one hand gripping Ben. 

"I don't - I don't know what to do," he admits. His hands go up to his hair, a familiar habit he has when he gets overwhelmed. 

Even Ben looks a little lost for words, unsure of the best thing to do. His hands twitch and he glances around, shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

"Just take it easy, Klaus," he tells him. Klaus' hands slide down from his hair to his cheeks.

"I hurt Luther," he says in a whisper. He had thrown him right to the other end of the room. If he had hit his head hard enough, maybe he could be dead. Klaus is a murderer because he can't even control himself.

"You've seen Luther," Ben says, "he'll be fine, Klaus. But you - you need to go back. It's not safe to be alone right now, and I can't help," he says, and he's right. Klaus hadn't noticed it but his hand had fallen through him once more. Klaus also thinks he means to say that _he_ , Klaus, isn't safe. He's a danger to be near.

Klaus wraps his arms around himself. His family hated him before, but now? After he's gone and hurt Number One? Klaus' breath stutters in his throat. He can't go back home, which is fine. He never wanted to go there in the first place. Sure, he'll miss his siblings, but Klaus can adjust to being alone. He always has been. He's used to it and he'll go back to that way of life if it keeps everyone else safe. 

There was a time he didn't have to be alone. Klaus remembers the way he landed in Vietnam and how he'd just melted into the 173rd Airborne Brigade perfectly. How all the men around him laughed and shared shots with him in some club down the street from their hotel. How Dave would lean back and point out all of the constellations in the sky and Klaus would watch them reflect in his eyes. Dave had been soft and gentle with him, and not in the way his siblings had been, not in the way that he didn't think Klaus could handle anything more than being treated like a toddler. Dave's hands had been soft as if he would touch Klaus and Klaus would be an illusion and he'd fade away. He'd look at Klaus like he'd disappear any minute now. Dave had shown him that Klaus wasn't some burden that would snap and go crazy at a moments notice. Dave had been utterly real with Klaus and Klaus had let him die, too. 

Klaus wonders if Five would send him back to 1968. They'd be eager to get rid of him and Klaus would happily serve in war after war to be by Dave's side. This time, he could keep him alive. 

"Klaus, look at me." Ben's hands wave in front of his face and Klaus blinks rapidly. He's on his knees, hands going to the dog tags around his neck. 

"I need to get him," Klaus mutters. Dave always knew what to do. Dave would treat him like a real person. He thinks about the dog tags in his hand, remembers Five pulling out an identical pair of his pocket before going to a museum. Maybe he found something there. Klaus realises, distantly, that this must mean he's tied to that damn apocalypse Five has been going on about. Does it really matter, though? Five's always said that time is a sensitive thing. Something they'd never wrap their simple minds around. Time is inevitable and there's nothing Klaus can do about it now.

Klaus' hands don't come in contact with the dog tags around his neck. He looks down, pats around his chest at the height they're always at. They're not there. He runs his hands, now frantic, around his neck. There's no string and rope. They're not there.

"I know this is bad right now Klaus -"

Klaus looks at Ben, finally. He knows Ben is trying his best, but Ben doesn't know what is best for Klaus. Hell, Klaus doesn't even know what's best for himself. Klaus heaves himself to his feet, ignoring Ben and staggering towards the exit of the alley. He hears Ben follow him, still trying to advise him to take a moment, to calm down, to think. He runs his hands through his hair and takes in a deep breath before turning back around, waving his hand at Ben.

"Just stop! Please!" He snaps, but as his hand waves out it pulses blue and Ben collapses to the floor and disappears. 

Klaus' lip trembles and he gasps, reaching out to where Ben once stood. He's far gone, however, and Klaus pulls his hands back to his chest. He feels guilt and panic weave around his ribs. 

"Ben?" He calls, looking around as if expecting to see Ben pop out anywhere. He doesn't, and Klaus feels his eyes burn. He doesn't want to be alone, but he doesn't even know what he's done to Ben. If he's just sent him away permanently or not.

His fingers scratch at his chest where dog tags should be and Klaus _needs_ them. He must have dropped them somewhere, and he manages to compose himself enough to tell himself to retrace his steps. 

They're nowhere in the alley. Klaus digs around where he had been sitting, kicks aside trash and dirt, but they're nowhere.

He leaves the alley and goes down the street the way he came. He weaves between groups of people, ignoring as they mutter comments about Klaus as he shoves his way through. His eyes swing left and right, searching the pavement and the road for a shine of metal. He thinks he sees it, once, but when he goes for it all it is is broken glass that cuts his fingers. He lets it fall to the floor and holds his hands to his chest before continuing on. He tries not to look at his hands for fear of seeing blood that isn't his, for fear of making the gunshots from Viet Cong soldiers get closer and louder. He focuses, instead, on placing one bare foot in front of the other and following his footsteps.

He doesn't see it. He can't find it, and he fears that he's dropped it in the academy. If that's the case, he isn't sure what he'll do. It's a few streets away. He can't face his siblings again, not after what he's just done. He can't show his face there again, but his entire being craves the only connection he still has to Dave.

Except... perhaps he _doesn't_ need it. He conjured Ben. He's conjured other ghosts. That's his whole shtick, apparently, and he was pretty damn good at it too. It stands to reason that he should be able to conjure Dave, too. At the very least he has to try.

"Yeah, yeah... I can do that," he murmurs to himself. He might not remember how to do it, but _surely_ it can't be _that_ hard. 

He turns away from the academy, where he'd been heading in the direction of previously, and instead he finds himself in a park. It's not empty but the few people there don't give him a second glance, thankfully. The dirt beneath his feet is more grounding and familiar than the hard pavement of the city. It's comforting, and if he focuses hard enough then the chill in the wind turns into the humid warmth of Vietnam. When he looks around, too, the sun blinds him and his foot slips in a ditch. He feels sweat rolling down his skin from the heat and exhaustion but his bones feel inexplicably cold, right down to the marrow. He feels like that time they had to wade through a river and Klaus' foot had slipped and he'd went under, tumbling with the force. Baley had grabbed him and pulled him back out of the water by the neck of his jacket. He'd warmed up quickly under the heavy sun but he'd still felt frozen to the bone, even after his hair and clothes had dried. That was how he felt right now. A bone-deep chill, an ebb and flow of crashing waves that threatened to drag him down, down, down. 

He listens to it. Hears the crash of waves fall into the crash of artillery bombardments. Beside him dirt gets thrown up with an impact and Klaus throws himself to the ground, hands over his head. He's not got his helmet on and he feels naked without them. He's seen how easily men's skulls can crack under pressure, how blood and brain matter can flow without the protection of a helmet. He can't find his helmet but he sees a tree nearby and he presses himself against it, curling in on himself. Bullets whiz by from unseen Viet Cong soldiers and Klaus can't find his gun, either, and though he can hear soldiers yelling he can't find his own men. He must have gotten split from them while dodging the shells. He's lost, unarmed, unprotected, and in the middle of a rain of gunfire, and he knows this is how men die.

Klaus' hands, blue and bloody - _whose blood? Blue?_ \- clasp over his ears and he sucks in as much air as his ribs would let him. He opens his eyes and sees boots in front of him, American army boots, and sees James staring down at him. His eyes are wide and he has to lean in close to be heard over the choir of gunshots, explosions and screaming. God, the screaming. They must be near a village, because he could hear women screaming, too. Klaus never liked when they were fighting around homes. Innocent people always got hurt, but he could do nothing about it.

"Sir - Sir, you're hurt," James says, heaving for breath, and when Klaus glances down at himself he's right - he can feel it, now. Before he'd been too overwhelmed to notice it but now he notices the bullet wound, deep in his gut. Air leaves his lungs like a kick in the chest and his hands leave his head and go to the wound.

"I'll get a medic, I'll get a medic," James rambles, nodding, and Klaus reaches up with a blood-slick hand to grip his arm. 

"Dave?" He asks. "Where's Dave? Where's Dave?"

"I don't know, sir," James says, crouching low. Both of them duck there head as another explosion shakes the ground. Someone sobs. 

"Get Dave," Klaus pleads, voice cracking. James hesitates but Klaus insists, grip tightening on his arm, and the soldier nods his head and leaves Klaus, running off with his head low.

Klaus keeps his hands on the painful wound in his gut. When he blinks rapidly everything has a blue sheen to it, a feverish, glitching look to reality, but then he blinks again and everyone is still screaming and the smell of napalm burns his nose and he's still in Vietnam.

Though he sees boots run past him no soldiers stop again, and Klaus thinks they're losing. He sees soldiers drop one by one and knows the Viet Cong are getting closer, and he can't do anything because he's already been shot and he has no protection, no gear, no gun. They're losing this attack and Klaus is going to die in some ditch near some innocent village that's either going to be blown apart or burned to the ground. He wonders if his dog tags will get sent home, but then he remembers that his siblings don't care either way. And plus, Dave has Klaus' dog tags. 

"Dave!" Klaus cries. When he looks around all he sees are soldiers and the ice in his bones burst. Screaming erupts into his ears and not from any American soldiers, Viet Cong soldiers, not even any poor civilians. It comes from forms that appear out of nowhere and burst from the corners of his mind. Their eyes - the ones that have eyes - are on fire, blazing blue, and their jaws are slack, tortured screams and cries echoing out of their decaying throats. They reach out, touch Klaus with scared, hesitant, desperate fingers, and sing  _"Klaus, Klaus, Klaus, save us, Klaus, save us, save us, save us."  
_

_"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me_.  _The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want..."_

_"Trust in Hashem with all thy heart, and lean not upon thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes; fear HaShem, and depart from evil;It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones."_

Klaus tries to block out the desperate religious pleas the corpses retell in their broken voices, but they're never ending and echo in his skull. They pulse the same blue as his bloody fingers and it makes them furious when their hands pass through Klaus, and Klaus presses himself back further against the tree he's hiding behind. Behind him is the gunshots and choppers of a never ending war and in front of him are the ghosts that he's conjured, the skeletal faces of people in the park as they fall to the floor and light leaves their eyes. Corpses wander the street, trailing blood and guts, and scream in the same way they had in death, beg whatever living person they can grab to help them, _god, please help me._

Still, Dave isn't with him. He can't tell what's going on between the haze in his mind being projected forth into reality. He isn't sure if he's in Vietnam and dying or if he's in the same graveyard Reginald pulled him through as a child, or if he's in a park in the city with corporeal ghosts wreaking havoc in blind rage, with people nearby collapsing to feeble knees, organs aging and failing. 

Something crashes behind him and Klaus ducks his head between his knees and fists his hair in bloody fingers and closes his eyes. He can't hear himself _think_ above all the screaming, can't feel anything except for the fire of Vietnam and the ice in his veins.

Klaus opens his mouth and screams.

It tears from his throat, scratchy and broken, but he tries to out-scream the dead and dying around him, tries to ground himself to _something_. It doesn't help nor does it work to help anything. He tastes ash in the air and copper in the back of his mouth, and he thinks he's dying, still. He almost hopes he is - he wants his mind to piece itself back together, to stop shattering and falling apart. He wants peace.

Something solid and warm touches his arm and he flinches away from the invasive touch. Between gasps, Klaus manages out a  _"God, please, stop, stop, don't touch me."_

"Hey," the person says, soft and steady and voice like honey, "hey, Klaus, it's okay. I need you to breathe, yeah? You're gonna be okay. We still need to get that cat, and you know I'm not letting you out of that promise."

Klaus' breath stutters in his throat and he pries his sore eyes open, blinking rapidly. A warm face gazes back at him, smile bright and soft. 

 _"Dave,"_ Klaus sobs out, and he falls forwards to him. The ground shakes and they both duck, Klaus under Dave, and his fingers are tight and unrelenting, clinging onto his shirt. 

"Yeah, it's me, it's me, Klaus. I'm right here," he hushes. His hand, dirt caked under his nails, calloused from work, run up and down his trembling arms, over the tattoo they got. Klaus keeps him close, refusing to let him move away from him an inch. 

Klaus' lips twitch upwards into a broken smile. 

"Don't - don't leave me, Dave, don't leave me," he begs. His fingers press into him, a bruising tight grip, and Dave shakes his head.

"Never, Klaus. Never. But you need to breathe."

Klaus thinks he forgot how to do that long ago, now. He doesn't want to. He can ignore the flames and the waves threatening to devour him, now he has Dave.

He tries to say something but it doesn't get past his lips. Dave hushes him.

"I got you," he tells him, "but Klaus. I'm here, but baby, you need to stop this. Please, Klaus."

He doesn't even know what he's doing. He clings onto Dave's torso and he looks over his shoulder and looks at his siblings. There's police, unconscious or dead, slumped against their cop cars a few feet away Their ghosts haven't formed yet. Klaus closes his eyes.

 

*******************

 

Vanya suggests they go to his apartment first. It's a good enough start but Diego doesn't think Klaus will be there; he knows he lives a fair amount away from the academy, and he hadn't been in his right mind when he'd ran out. He doesn't think he would have had enough clarity to get in a taxi and make his way home. 

"What does he like?" Diego sighs, running his hands down his face. "Where does he go?"

He wishes he'd spent more time with Klaus, now. There's an added urgency once Five held up those dog tags with a horror in his eyes Diego would never have associated with Five. Even then, Diego thinks he would be this urgent anyway. The image of Klaus shaking like a leaf on the floor, eyes wide in horror and fear at himself, was burned into Diego's mind. He knew that they'd all made many mistakes with Klaus, and though none of them could really be blamed, per say, for Reginald's decision to change their opinions of Klaus like he had, but he knew that didn't excuse how they'd treated him since. He thinks that's a large part to blame for Klaus' outburst, also. It may not have ever changed his outburst of power, no, but maybe if he knew he could trust them better then he wouldn't have ran away.

And that hurt. The idea that their own brother couldn't trust them in the most vulnerable moment of his life, possibly, but he knows none of them have really given him a reason to, and he knows he's part of the problem, too.

"I have no idea," Vanya says, and she looks as helpless and infuriated as Diego feels. She shifts on her feet and looks around as if expecting Klaus to jump out at any moment. Unsurprisingly, he doesn't.

Diego closes his eyes and resists the urge to hit something.

"Fuck," he sighs, hands clenching into fists. "We'll - fuck - lets go this way," he says, pointing down the street and beginning to walk swiftly. Vanya has to hurry to keep up but she stays by his side.

They continue down the street with a look that makes people move out of their way before Diego can shove them aside. He isn't sure where Klaus might be but he looks into each alleyway as if expecting him to be there. He even goes into a couple of shops on the street, asking if they'd seen him running past. One of them actually points them in the direction they saw him run, but that's the only clue they get. He doesn't know how long they search but he knows Vanya is losing hope, and so is he.

His phone rings. He picks it up without checking the caller ID.

"What?" He snaps. He goes to the side of the pavement, Vanya following closely. 

"We've found him." 

Luther's voice startles him. 

"What?" He asks. Vanya leans in close and he repeats what Luther said. "Where is he? Is he with you?"

"Not... not exactly. He's in the park across from that  _Piccola Luna_ place. I... we're too late, Diego. We can't even get close to him. I don't think he knows where he is."

"What do you mean by _that_ ," Diego asks, dangerously low. Luther lets out a long sigh in, the same one he does when he's trying to avoid talking about something, same one he used when he told them they all died in the apocalypse. The one that's happening right now.

He's already started down towards the park Luther said, gesturing for Vanya to hurry up and follow him. 

Before Luther can continue, there's an explosion. Everyone nearby ducks, eyes wild, and heads to the nearest building. 

"What the fuck was that? Luther?" He says. He's pulled himself and Vanya against the wall out of reflex, looking around. The park is just behind the street.

"It was Klaus."

Diego's eyebrows furrow and he stares at Vanya as if she knows the answers.

"What do you mean it's Klaus?" Diego hisses. 

"I'm telling you. Just - it's Klaus. We can't do anything."

Diego presses his lips together. 

"Fuck it." He hangs up his phone.

"Come on," he says to Vanya. Shoving his phone into his pocket, Diego hurries down the street, sister in tow, and dodging groups of panicked people. He can hear sirens in the distance.

They round the street corner and the park comes into view. It's utterly crowded, full of men in army uniforms, full of corpses, and Diego flinches back. Vanya has a hand over her mouth and she steps closer to Diego. He looks around, trying to spot his siblings. 

"There!" Vanya says, and he follows her pointing finger to an alleyway. It's hard not to notice Luther and Five together, Allison behind them, and there's a fourth person with them, occasionally shimmering the same Blue as everyone around the park.

"C'mon," he repeats, though it's Vanya that takes his wrist and pulls him towards them, ducking behind cars with each explosion that goes off. They reach the alleyway eventually, and he feels hands pulling himself and Vanya into it and against the wall.

"Ben?"

Vanya's staring at the third person with wide eyes and it's only then that Diego turns to look at him. Sure enough, the fourth person resembles perfectly the Ben that once was, the way he had been before he left for his last mission. Diego's mouth drops as he stares at his brother and he reaches out with hesitant hands, but they land on him and stay there.

"B-Ben? Wh-what?"

"It's Klaus," Ben explains vaguely. A shimmer of blue runs through him and Diego's hands fall, but then he's solid again. 

"Talk later, yeah?" He offers, and Diego simply can't reply more than a nod.

"Yeah, yeah... right," he stammers, forcing himself to be composed for this moment because another explosion goes off - and _where are they coming from?_

"What's going on?" He asks, looking around. 

"It's Klaus," Five repeats, and Diego gives him a _look_.

"Obviously," Diego snaps. "How do we _stop_ it?" 

"Look around!" Five snaps back, and he looks so frayed that Diego hesitates. He remembers that Five lived through years of what killed them, had to bury their bodies, and he feels slightly guilty.

"We're too late, Diego! We have to leave and hope we get far enough away before he - what - blows himself up!" 

Diego's turned to look at the park. He can see all the soldiers running through fire that shone blue, can hear gunshots come from nowhere and sees the soldiers fall. Walking down the street he sees someone with broken bones and skin falling apart, sobbing incoherently and trying to clutch at some poor woman with tears running down her face and screaming. Diego watches in horror as the ghost falls through the woman and keeps moving forwards, and the woman herself seems to simply... age. Her young face sags with wrinkles and her posture weakens. Her knees give out and he knows by her yell that brittle bones just broke. She clutches at her stomach like her intestines are strangling her lungs and she coughs red until, finally, she stops moving, emaciated, skin stretched taught over breaking bones.

"We're not just leaving him," Ben snaps, eyes narrowed at a defensive Five. 

"Easy for you to say," Five snaps back, though his cheeks flush and it's obvious he feels guilty about saying it. He makes no move to apologise, however, his hands shaking over the wall he's clinging to. 

Diego watches as the sky ripples and something blue falls out. It crashes into the ground and dirt flies sky high. It scatters around the place and finally, finally, Diego sees him.

He's against a tree and on the floor, covered in dirt and - _blood_? His hands are over his head, glowing a bright, flashing blue that hurts to look at, and they pulse in time to the explosions and the shivers running through the ghosts. 

"Look - we did something wrong last time," Diego says, slowly and hesitantly. His words feel heavy on his tongue and he focuses on each one before saying it. "We have a chance to do something ri - right this time. We c-can't let this happen. Five... you're here this ti-time. You can help, too. We can't just - just sit here," Diego insists, fists twitching by his side. 

"I'm with Diego," Ben says almost immediately, and god, that's still odd to think. 

"Diego," Vanya nods, folding her arms across her chest. She's still pale; paler than usual, but determined.

Five shakes his head. "This is-" he's cut off by a sudden chorus of loud wails from the park and they all grimace. "It's insane - you're all suicidal. Did you forget the part where we all _died_?" He seethes, glaring up at him. 

He hasn't. He sure as hell hasn't. But then he sees the cop cars come speeding into the street and a familiar woman gets out and almost immediately falls. 

Diego doesn't look back. He steps out, a yell of  _"Eudora!"_ tumbling past his quaking lips. 

Hands grab his shoulders and pull him back, and Diego reaches back to slap Luther's hands away from him. Another set joins him and he turns to glare at Ben. Ben, who had only ever been a gentle spirit, who had hated his powers and the academy but loved his siblings, and who burned with a protectiveness and determination.

"Let me go first," he says, and Diego lets his shoulders slump. His heart pounds in his ears.

Diego nods his head. Let Luther, Allison and Five run off. He, Vanya and Ben would do their best, then, because Diego wasn't about to sit by and let everyone - let Eudora, his brother - die.

With that, Ben leaves. He doesn't look scared but Diego supposes he can't really be hurt, can he? He strides through the mess of fresh and old corpses without flinching, as if he's used to it, and into the battlefield that is the park, heading towards Klaus. He flickers in and out of sight a few times, stops and stands still a few times. They're tense, holding their breath, and Diego watches. He nears Klaus, crouching slowly, but then there's a pulse of blue and he's just gone. As if he'd never been there in the first place.

Instead, where he had been now stands another man - definitely not Ben - and he's crouching in front of Klaus.

"That's it," Diego mutters, and before Five can protest he's walking, then running right out of the alley. It's like there was a line drawn somewhere on the ground and once Diego steps over it, he feels tired. As if all the energy was sucked out of him. His knees felt weak and his lungs hurt as he breathed in smoke and ash, but he pushed forwards. He heard Vanya running after him, heard the rest of their siblings shouting after them and following. Diego forces his eyes forward, keeping them on Klaus as he, for the first time, uncurls himself from the tight, trembling ball and all but throws himself at the phantom in front of him.

He can't hear what he's saying because a gunshot echoes in his ear and a soldier screams as he dies and collapses _through_ Diego. 

He shivers, a grave-deep chill seizing him. He wraps his arms around himself and pushes forwards, notices with a morbid interest that the skin on his hands are wrinkled.

He jumps when there's a flash of blue beside him but it's only Five, staggering to regain his balance, and shortly after he hears Luther's pounding footsteps as he runs after him, followed shortly by Allison.

"We're not letting you do this alone," Luther says. His hair's beginning to grey. Diego thinks he's only here because he's Number One.

They turn and Klaus is staring at them. His eyes are shining the same blue as his hands and the phantoms around them and they're puffy and framed by tear tracks. His lips are twisted up in a smile, though, content. He knows it's not because he's looking at them. He knows that for sure because instead of facing them, he closes his eyes.

"Klaus," Diego says. He steps closer and his knees buckle, but it's fine, because he's close enough he knows Klaus can hear him. 

"Look at me, Klaus -"

"You need to stop this right now, Klaus!" Luther interjects, voice deep and loud. Diego sees Klaus flinch and his grip tightens on the soldier he's clinging to for dear life.

Both Diego and Vanya shoot him a look, but he simply shrugs. 

"Klaus, please -" Vanya starts. 

Klaus screws his eyes shut tighter. "L - leave me alone!" Klaus cries, voice short and sharp and hoarse. 

"We're not-not gonna l-leave you alone," Diego says, soft and low. He leans in a little closer. He can see the soldier whispering something but he can't quite pick it up.

"You need our help. We want to help you," Vanya says, pleads, but the glare he gives her when she tries to reach out and touch him is murderous. 

Dirt covers them as an explosion goes off, shakes the ground beneath them and even Luther falls, and everyone simultaneously ducks their heads down, hands over their heads.

Allison inches forwards. She's crying, her hands shaking, but she presses forwards even if Klaus falls back a bit and pulls the soldier with him.

"I'm - I'm so sorry Klaus," she utters, resisting the urge to cover her mouth with her hand. She digs her nails into the palms of her hands. "I didn't mean for this to happen, I didn't know -"

"You could have _told_ me!" Klaus interjects, and he sobs dryly again, as if his lungs can't keep up with their demand for air.

"I didn't think it'd go on like this," Allison replies. "I wanted to, Klaus, I wanted to. Dad wouldn't let me, Klaus, and I'm so sorry but we can help you _now_. Please, Klaus."

Klaus turns his head towards the soldier, lips moving rapidly as he rambles to him. 

Diego feels a pain in his stomach. It had begun as a throbbing and now moved onto a sharp, stabbing pain deep in his guts, and it makes him light headed. The world spins to the sound of gunshots and Klaus starts yelling again but he can't really catch the words, muffled like they're underwater. He hits the ground. 

Hands on him try and pull him back up, lightly slap his face and wave in front of his eyes, and he feels the ground shake. He hears screaming pierce the veil of water muffling his senses, damned choirs all begging something, and he turns his head slightly just to see hordes of people sprinting towards them. Some have broken limbs, some drag water everywhere and cough it up every time they cry, some bathe the place in red. The soldier Klaus had been holding onto is no longer there and Klaus is on the floor again, hands in his hair. 

Instinctively, they duck. They throw their hands over their heads and pray that these ghosts aren't physical, and god must have heard them because they storm right through the Hargreeves siblings, the only effect being a horrific, empty, cold chill running right to their core. He can hear Allison sobbing and Vanya muffling her yells with her shaking, aged hands. Five's hands are flickering blue desperately, his eyes wild as he looks around and yells curses, and Luther is holding onto Allison, half-covering her with his own body. 

The ghosts easily run right through them and slam into Klaus instead. Klaus' body shakes violently but once the ghosts touch him they disappear, collapse into nothingness and fall silent. There's no more explosions and gunshots, though the smell of smoke and decay is still clear as day to Diego's frayed senses. There's less screaming but still plenty, and Klaus is a hysterical mess of sobbing and screaming and pulling at his own hair or scratching the floor where Dave had once been. Ben's there, though, and he's holding onto Klaus and one of Klaus' hands are grasping Ben's wrists, and Ben smiles at him. 

Diego slumps into the ground and closes his eyes. 

His job is done and they're alive, he thinks, which is good enough. 

Just before he can drift to blissful nothingness, the nothingness his body just craves now, he feels a hand on him. 

_"We're not done. Not like this."_

It's Five, he recognises, and a flash of light illuminates his eyelids and he feels himself being stretched thin, spread out like paste, and when he opens his eyes they're all on the floor of the academy. The clock says it's eleven hours prior to what it had been seconds ago. Klaus is unconscious on the floor. 

He's alive, though, and Diego closes his eyes. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're happy with this. I left it in an ending similar to the TV show and I'm thinking about a sequel, picking up from where we left off.  
> To clear things up; Five time travelled at the end. Just in case that part was unclear. A few hours back, a few years; who knows that part.  
> But please, leave a kudos and a comment if you liked this and again, thank you so much for being patient with me. I hope the ending satisfies you.  
> If you like the idea of a sequel of this, following the idea that the siblings get their heads out of their asses and help Klaus, then please let me know!
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr @veteranklaus.


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